Saturday, June 18, 2011

Flower

I've been trying to write a bit more recently. I thought I'd put something up on my blog, because I've not updated in a while.

So here's something I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

The boy found a seed. He didn’t know what kind of a seed it was. He was just a boy. But even the boy knew that seeds were made to be planted, so that is what he did. He buried it in the earth and attended to it. He watered it every day, each time looking and praying and hoping to see a shoot pushing its way out of its earthy coffin. Just a boy, and he loved that seed and that flower-to-be as only a boy could.

One day, to his delight, a green shoot, peeping out at him. The boy learned a lesson that day. Faith and love were always rewarded. He nurtured that young plant like a mother until it blossomed into a beautiful yellow flower. It was not the biggest flower, nor the prettiest, but to that boy it was wondrous and – more importantly – it was his.

Then his parents took him to one side to educate him. The flower was a dandelion. A dandelion was a weed. The boy had grown a weed. The boy was heart-broken. He walked away from his flower and never looked back. He had showered his affection on something that was a flower in disguise. It was no longer beautiful. A useless, dirty weed. He was ashamed of its ugliness and of his stupidity. The boy learned another lesson, but this one tasted bitter.

The Lesson: There is nothing more foul-tasting than to be disappointed; to find that the flower you had invested yourself in was actually a weed. It is better not to care. It is better not to love unless you are absolutely certain, one-hundred-percent convinced that the seed is that of a rose. Beware, lest you pour yourself into something or someone useless. Beware, weeds masquerading as flowers.

The boy walked away that day. Do not judge him too harshly. He was only a boy, after all. I hope that when he becomes a man he may see things differently. That he may see things the same way as the wrinkled, wizened Albanian nun who saw the face of Christ in the poorest, ugliest beggars. Who saw a flower in every weed.

I pray that when he becomes a man he may see things differently. That he may see things the same way as the wandering, preaching carpenter who said “Whatever you do for the least of these weeds, you do for Me.”

I am sure that when he becomes a man he will see things differently. He will be taken by the hand, led into the garden and spoken to: “You see all these faces, all these spectacular flowers? They were weeds that somebody loved.”