When I entered middle school my family moved to a house in Madison Wisconsin. It was our house, our walls, inside and out, and with that it began to take shape and look like our family. Somewhere early on, my mom painted some dancing, flowy stick figures of us on the garage door. The house is a purple color (my mom’s favorite) and the stick figures, a deeper purple, adorned the garage door.

I remember being quite embarrassed of this display of art when ever a new person would come by or drop me off from school or soccer practice or what not, I was a middle schooler and I wanted to be cool. Little did I realize just how cool it was. That house is a beautiful display of art. The kitchen cabinets black with white specks splattered all over, Jackson Pollackish. There are palm trees painted on the wall in the basement. There’s writing on walls in the kitchen, each room a different shade, or multiple shades. My mom painted one of the toilet seats once, but it slowly flaked off on our bottoms. My brother and I had painted our room the team colors of the Charlotte Hornets (way before they started offering official team color paints). I lacked in the creativity side, but my brother and sisters rooms have been unique pieces of art for years. I love hanging out at that house. My brother has farside cartoons painted on the door and the wall, graffiti of every shade covers the walls. My sisters room has changed so many times I can’t keep track, but it’s incredible the personality she and her room have had.

I don’t know when we decided it, but somewhere along the way we adopted The Big Orange Splot as our family book. It’s a little new-agey in it’s language, but it seems to embody our family. The story goes Mr. Plumbean lives on a neat street where all the houses are the same. A seagull drops a can of orange paint on his house and after some contemplation he leaves the splot and paints the rest of his house to fit all his dreams. One by one his neighbors try and persuade him to paint it back, but each time they go away and change their house to fit their dreams. The line goes, “My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams.” I love it.

I think the book, and my family’s house, seem to capture some of what the journey is all about. We had a conversation about cool a week or two ago on here, and I think this is what I was thinking about when I wrote that post. I want to break away from the unspoken rules and restrictions that we place on ourselves to conform. It comes in all places and avenues of life, but one place it definitely comes is in what you and your stuff is supposed to look like. God created us and the things around us to bloom and blossom and encompass God’s dreams for us, which many times our the stifled dreams that resonate in our hearts. I want my house to look like that.

We don’t have a garage in our new home, just a gravel spot for a couple cars. Every time I pull up to the back of our house I see the big backside of our house and I picture a beautiful mural painted there. Art is an amazing thing (my brother understands it way more than I do). There is a couple large murals on the sides of buildings in our community, amazing pieces of work done by youth in the neighborhood through a summer arts program. I stopped by and talked to them the other day about allowing them to use our house as a canvas, they sounded interested. I was so giddy with excitement about the possibility I called my mom as soon as I walked out the door.

Enough rambling, I’ll give you more details as they work out. But I’ll leave you with this thought or encouragement, break free of the need to conform, paint your dreams, fulfill others dreams, leave your job or any commitments that are keeping you from doing what your called to do. This is your orange splot.