Lessons From Flora
Sometimes when I sit down in front of my laptop to begin working on a blog entry I am already apprehensive. I fear that I am going to come off sounding like I have either just gotten done eating a pan of "special" brownies or I have recently suffered a significant brain injury before writing.
This is definitely one of those times. I already know how this sounds...but I just have to write about flowers.
Yep, flowers.
I have been thinking a lot about flowers lately. I am convinced they are a fantastic example of how I want to live my life. So they have been the subject of my thoughts over the past few days.
Humor me. I want you to close your eyes and for just a moment picture a flower in the movie theater in your skull.
I mean it. Really think about a flower.You can choose any kind of flower you want. Hell, even make one up. Just make sure that you give your flower a little detail.
What does it look like? What color is it? How does it sit in the ground? How many petals? What does it smell like?
Right now, for me, there is nothing that quite compares to the beauty of a flower.
I recognize that I am entering the age bracket where some men my age go ape-shit crazy and start to lose touch with reality. Perhaps I am going nuts, after all how many dudes will dedicate a night to writing about flowers? Not many I am sure of it. At least with my version of my md-life crisis I haven't cashed in my children's college fund, got some face ink, and started collecting old Rodney Dangerfield memorabilia...yet.
That said, I believe flowers to be a perfect example of how to look at life. Before you unsubscribe to my blog please let me explain:
Flowers are amazing teachers.
They rest in the Earth in a bed of bright colors to help remind us of the power of creation and of life. They are able to grow in the most fertile of soil in well cultivated gardens and they can grow in rocks and in dry and unforgiving cracked dirt.
Flowers teach us that life and creation will always find a way. They are an example that creation is not something that happened in the past. Creation is happening all around us. Our world is a work in progress. Creation isn't just for the Old Testament folks.
Creation is happening all the time! It's all around us!
Flowers demonstrate their gratitude for life by stretching toward the sun. A flower will bend and contort themselves in a desperate attempt to be bathed in the light. While basking in the warmth of the sun they express their thankfulness by blossoming in a bright and colorful explosion.
The flowers dance in gratitude under the glow of our sun. They celebrate the life they have been given by blooming. Flowers teach us to say "thank you" for being alive.
It has occurred to me that flowers are joyful servants of the human race. They offer themselves up to our shears so that they may be placed in a cold vase in some office building. Flowers offer their essence in hopes that maybe someone will take notice how beautiful they are and take in their scent. A scent that can steal the person who is smelling it away from where they are and back in time to their grandfathers garden years ago. Flowers have the ability to transport us away from the present and bring us into our memory with just one smell.
Flowers know what they are. They are a gift...and they give of themselves selflessly.
As it slowly wilts the flower final lesson is the most powerful. It's last item to teach me is that this physical life is very delicate and temporary. Just like us, a flowers life is bookended by the same two events: Creation and Death.
They scratch and claw to break through the surface of the Earth, then they dance with the sun for a bit, soon after they they drop their petals and fade away. In essence we do the same thing. We come to be, we experience life, and then we surrender so that we return to where we came from.
A flower lives without being afraid of the end. It does not fear the changing of the season that is to come....it is firmly rooted in the present.
I can learn a lot from a flower.
A flower teaches me to be aware of the gift of life and how beautifully God created the universe.
A flower teaches me to be grateful. To give thanks for my life. No matter what type of soil I am planted in. Just keep dancing under the sun....
A flower teaches me to give of myself. To be selfless. I have to be willing to be of service.
A flower teaches me to be mindful of how temporary life is and not to fear the end of it. To instead, relish each moment. A flower does not live in the mistakes of the past, nor does it fret about the future. It is in the present. I need to work on this one the most.
Flowers exist effortlessly whereas I struggle and rage against all the ways the world has wronged me.
They are simple. They are creative. They are grateful. They are servants. They embrace the now.
I pray that someday I will be more like they are.
I have been thinking a lot about flowers.
Posted by john roedel at 1/9/2012 11:53 PM 
Categories: Life
Tags: life flowers possible midlife crisis
Categories: Life
Tags: life flowers possible midlife crisis
This was beautiful. You may be a little crazy though. We are glad you are. That is what makes you a great writer.
I have had a flower garden for 10 years. It is a very sacred place for me. What you wrote is how I feel about my various flowers. I just never could quite put it into words.
God bless you and please write more.
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You made me cry. This hit home hard. Nice work John. And thanks!
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