SEEING DIFFERENTLY

After gardening for decades

I think of myself as fairly attuned to nature.

Observant of it’s changes.

Aware of it’s endless offerings.

Then came last weekend.

Sunday morning

Just as I’m heading off to the shower

The phone rings.

It’s Christianne with news.

Our annual outdoor worship service

Has been moved inside.

The weather is a little unpredictable.

So…could I make two flower arrangements for the front of the church.

This is my normal pattern but put on hold this week.

Since we planned to worship

Under the canopy of that great

American Elm tree on the front lawn of the church.

The cool late spring.

Combined with high winds and rains on Saturday

Had left me we very few blooms.

But I told Christianne I’d give it a shot.

Two days before we both had endless Viburnum blooms.

Now we had what she describes as “snow”

Created from fallen petals.

I didn’t have much time

Or many flowers

But out I go in hopes of finding some protected blooms

On the Viburnum.

No such luck,

It looks nothing like it had the week before.

But as I looked a little closer

And found that though the petals have fallen

What’s left is just as beautiful

And makes a great flower arrangement as well.

What a lesson.

Look beyond what you normally see

Look deeper

There is beauty there

There is life

There are lessons to be taught

And learned.

Within 24 hours

The skies would darken over our beloved state.

Several communities would be hit

By tornados more powerful than we have ever known

26 people including 10 children would lose their lives.

Thousands of people would lose their homes

They will spend weeks

Sorting through the rubble

Looking for bits and pieces of what we call their lives.

But they have learned to see differently

Look beyond what they lost

And focus on what they have.

There is beauty there

There is life.

And gratitude.

Gail