Thunder rumbles. This bright sunflower quivers just the other side of a wide open window, and the air feels calm, still - slightly warm. These are the contradictions of a summer storm.
[Flash!... Count one... two... three... four.... fi... It's okay, I'm safe.]
Let's talk about the sunflower for a moment. Maybe that yellow is as big a symbol of joy as we know, but for this plant, its early weeks were far from it. Blighted by over-watering and bug-infested leaves, at one point, resembling five inches of limp, pathetic green rag, it was nearly crushed and binned. Give me up, the sorry leaves whimpered.
Desperate; sad.
But as its buggy leaves were ripped off, and more gentle watering took over, it strengthened, and in a week when backs were turned (towards the sun in another country, oh sweet irony) the little plant, in solitude with no audience, quietly exploded.
Amazing statement of life.
But this was an insufficient explosion - as the original flower faded, four more have burst out of its wake. It seems almost violent, its little assault on death.
The storm rumbles on, and these small flowers sing on in the midst of it. Four, where there was one, where there was nearly nothing. Henri Nouwen suggests that we hope based on expectation bred by experience. Is it irrational to cling on to this picture as a signal for new joys, whatever the circumstance? The more humble the redemption story, the more accessible it is. Who does not want their life in its most painful moments to resemble that sunflower?
{Today's Soundtrack: Alberta Cross - Magnolia}
