Yellow…

On the drive between Palani and Oddanchatram, two small towns in southwest Tamil Nadu, there’s a particular wonder to behold in a particular season. Vast fields bathed in yellow. Yellow- the unapologetic bright kind. Oh yes, the colour yellow is associated with Palani a lot, especially ‘cos of the robes the pilgrims to the Palani temple wear and walk the roads on. But no, that’s not what I’m talking about.

It was Monday morning, and I was on the way back from an eventful weekend at home back to the place where I live and work. The driver anna was being his usual chatty self, filling me in on the local political scenes and all that was happening in and around his village and I kept him engaged with an occasional comment here and there and mostly with the vigorous nod that most South Indians have mastered over time. The kind that almost compromises the stability of the atlanto-occipital joint. We kept at it, me encouraging him to go on, while my mind kept busy, pondering over the demands of changing seasons in life. Noise on the inside and noise on the outside.

“Madam look!” He suddenly said, pointing to the sides. And there they were. Golden yellow fields. On both sides of the road. The sun shining on them enhancing their colour. Vast fields of sunflowers. Big ones. We stopped for a couple of minutes to just take in that beauty. As we gazed at those fields for a bit, the driver anna’s friendly voice faded into the background and the noises inside of me died down. There was a peculiar thing though. I was looking at the sunflowers. But the flowerheads were all turned in the opposite direction. Each one of those hundreds of flowers were faced in the same direction, their stalks straight, their heads held high- the direction the sun was shining on them. There was not a single flower that turned the other way round and not one of them drooping down. Not one flower turned the way the people who stopped to admire them were looking at. They just had one focus. And that was the source of their beauty, their nourishment and all that they were about. Named appropriately- Sun-flowers.

“Madam, polaama?” (shall we go?), the driver’s voice interrupted that moment with an urgency. As we resumed our journey forward, there was a strange peace inside of me. I was being reminded with as much clarity as possible- ‘ Why’re you looking around? Look to the Son (Jesus).’

That’s been the image in my head since. That sea of yellow.

No matter what everyone else has to say, or how much you’ve left to do or how impossible you think things look, will you look to the Son- the Author and Perfecter of your faith? Your Rock, your sure foundation.

Can we do that in our day to day lives, casting but a glance at what is around us, fixing our gaze though on Jesus? Unashamed, heads held high, undisturbed in our devotion to Him?

And when we do that, what others will notice about us is the light that falls on us- the glory of the Almighty God dwelling in us, His love brimming out from us. The colour of His love- that’s our ‘yellow’. Whatever season of life we’re in.

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.‘ _{(Helen Lemmel)}

“and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…“( Hebrews 12:1, 2a)