"It's Not Easy Being Green"

"It's not easy bein' green."

A quote which has greatly affected my life and living was uttered by a Muppet frog. (How's that for a major influence?)

Kermit said these immortal words, well, sang, them first on Sesame Street when I was just a little Jared Steven Musgrove. Kermit keens in the song about his green coloration, confessing how green "blends with so many ordinary things."

The song stuck with me for years. Some said the music was a bit sad and many of the kids watching Sesame Street back in the mid-80's didn't "get it" (myself included). But I liked it. I liked Kermit. I thought him a kind, gentle, and loving frog with some simple wisdom to impart us kids. I sensed in him a kindred spirit as he sang.

Looking back now I can see why I loved the song so much. I'm a melancholy temperament. No, really, certifiable. I took the tests. It doesn't mean I'm all depressive and sad. It just means things like singing Muppet frogs, or kids on a playground, or an episode of Everwood, or a bear hug from a godly friend moves my spirit, often and deeply. Sometimes to tears.

I grew older and up, never losing love for Kermit or the song. But it was in senior AP English with Ms. Marcia Key that the frog's enduring quote came back to me with great meaning. Her final words to us before high school graduation: "You guys just spent a year at the top of the food chain and now you have to go be green all over again. And like Kermit once said, 'It's not easy bein' green.'"

Boom!

I GOT it. It was all about being new in a situation. About starting all over again. Renewal. Learning something fresh. Adjusting to a new life. Defining your identity to an entirely new group of people just when you thought you'd never have to do it again. Green is change. It's realizing that as much as we'd like to stay the same person forever, we often don't. And shouldn't. Not if life is going rightly. All of this was an organic fit with and protest against my natural naivete of the time. You can't be naive forever. If you are, you aren't growing.

I'll be some shade of green my entire life. This life with God is growing and alive and verdant and glowingly emerald! There will always be novel experiences and things to be new to.

"Blessed is the man...[whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he mediates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither." - (Ps. 1:1-3)

"But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever." - (Ps. 52:8)

So I'm green, and will be for the rest of my life, and it'll do fine. Even if I means some people will pass me over because I'm not standing out "like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky."

It's not easy, but I WANT to be green because when you're green you're growing.

(Would now be the time to confess my favorite color is blue? Remember, the melancholy thing? Well, green as a color is runner-up. "Green" as an idea and concept wins the prize. Though there's plenty of conotations with the concept of "blue"...but that's probably another blog).

So thank you Kermit (and Ms. Key), for reminding me "green is the color of spring;" that it can be "cool and friendly-like. Green can be big like a mountain, or important like a river, or tall like a tree."

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day." -(2 Corinthians 4:16)