Did you ever wonder if God has a favorite color? 

During last month’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., I joined the great procession along Constitution Avenue and tried to guess what it might be. Standing on the frigid National Mall for the Congressional speeches, then shivering as I slowly made my way towards Capitol Hill, I was struck by the beauty of the mighty river of colorfully-clad pilgrims marching despite the low temperatures. (Did I mention it was cold??).

God’s palette is diverse and glorious, but later that evening, in a back alley of Baltimore, God showed me that, perhaps, his favorite color was a dingy gray.

As I defrosted on the long bus ride home, my overtaxed body contorted into an unnaturally twisted shape; our driver Bob pulled into the neon-lit Inner Harbor area for a dinner break, but my half-century-old musculature triumphed over my digestive system.

“I’m not going to make the walk to the restaurant, guys,” I informed my famished friends. “Please bring me some take-out when you’re done.” As I huddled in row 6, seat 4, Bob drove from the waterfront and declared in his four-packs-a-day smoker’s rasp, “I don’t want to pay $40.00 to park this thing for just an hour, so let’s go ditch the bus.”

Ditch the bus?! What did THAT mean?? Before I had the chance to query my diminutive escort, he maneuvered the vehicle away from the safely-illuminated, tourist-friendly semi-circle and drove a few blocks deeper into Charm City.

I’d never been to Baltimore, yet this area seemed oddly familiar… that’s it!  I had seen it years ago in the opening montage of the “Homicide: Life on the Street” television crime drama! Look, here’s the storefront where Bayliss and Pembleton found that triple murder! Over there: the tenement where Munch and Lewis were shot!  We’re in dire trouble!

Bob pulled into a side alley, parked in front of a boarded-up house, then slumped down in his seat. “Watch for the cops so we don’t get a ticket,” my fellow miscreant said. I flicked on the 3-watt bulb in the overhead dome at my seat and started to write: first, my March for Life story notes, then a narrative which would serve either as a column or an impromptu last will and testament, depending upon the evening’s outcome.

The minutes ticked by slowly, and I looked out the window and began to pray. “I know God is everywhere,” I thought, “but what if I’m blending into this dark, colorless landscape and he’s distracted by the beautiful colors near the waterfront?”

Then, across the busy avenue before us, I saw a sight which instilled terror in my heart and made me forget my own dangerous predicament. An ancient, slumped man sitting in a motorized wheelchair on the corner was looking side to side for a break in the traffic. Bob, too, had caught sight of the man, and with wonderment in his voice, proclaimed, “He’s going to try to cross the road!”

The senior citizen, barely visible in his dingy gray overcoat and ski cap, looked once more left, once more right, then moved the lever on the arm of his chair to inch off the curb. Cars continued to whiz by, seemingly unconcerned that this gray-clad child of God was slowly crossing their paths. Bob and I held our breath as the man crossed one lane successfully, then toggled the chair’s joystick again to pause on the yellow center line.

“It’s like a real-live version of ‘Frogger,’” I whispered to Bob, praying to the Creator that the dingy-gray commuter wouldn’t meet the same ignoble end as the amphibian in my video-game-playing youth. “C’mon, old guy, c’mon, old guy,” Bob chanted, and we both cheered as the old man safely completed his journey.

Evidently, despite the beauty of the March and the grandeur of the Baltimore waterfront, God’s favorite color that evening was indeed a dingy gray.