SHINING BACK

     I read something recently about the nature of color, and it started me thinking about my students. Color occurs in an object, this author said, when it reflects back the color of the spectrum that it cannot absorb, and it strikes me that my students show their “colors” when they reflect back the wisdom of the universe. Color does not exist “in” an object, but is simply reflected back to us from the object, and, in a strangely similar way, perhaps the intelligence I see in my students is simply the appearance and likeness of the vast intelligence of the cosmos. Color comes to objects and then is shined back to us to see, and wisdom, maybe, is made by the universe, flows to my students like the colors of the spectrum, and then is sparkled back, in special ways, for their classmates and teacher to take pleasure in.  In this sense, learning is not so much about absorbing knowledge as it is about letting the luster of the wisdom around us reproduce itself in us and then shine out, in a way that’s similar to the shining of specks of gold, which have no gold of themselves but share in the golden colors of light.  There’s understanding in my classroom and in the measureless spaces around our earth, and my students and I have the fun of reflecting it in countless extraordinary ways. It’s no harder, really, than a sky shining the blueness of the universe back to the universe, and to us.