Flowers bring messages of flourish, fullness, fragrance, freshness, fragility, and feathery touch!
They fall to the ground and return to the soil when their time for departure has arrived!
The temporariness of life is what they portray! While they flourish during their presence, bring a celebrant mood around them; they live pointing to the direction of their journey! It is during the shortness of their presence, the flowers share their exuberance! They appear for a purpose and fade away when that purpose was well expressed.
That took me to dwell on the theme of purposeful living !
The week before Christmas was a time when Anna and I felt the need to attend to the different green stretches between plants and trees in the garden. They used to be well kept without weeds and unwanted undergrowth. But we did not give adequate attention and we lost that refreshing look of the garden with weeds congesting the ground. It was during the restoration of the lawn stretches, we realised how the ground that was to offer healthy bed to plants and trees had been taken over by weeds. The ground normally fosters life and growth. But the ground began to feed the weeds.
This allegory brought an inner dimension to focus on. It is inattentiveness that deranges the purpose of the ground.
What is it which deranges the purpose in one's own life?
It is losing sight of value of life, the call of life, temporariness of life and the benevolence life can bring to others.
What then leads us to live our lives purposefully beyond just attending to our existential aspirations?
Let me quote a paragraph from the book, A Monk in the World- cultivating a spiritual life, by Wayne Teasdale to respond to the above question: " Awareness as an enhanced consciousness and heightened sensitivity to others allows us to take in more of reality than many can manage. But while awareness can be overwhelming, in most cases, a person with subtle awareness becomes a healing, loving and compassionate being. He or she is always looking for ways to respond to others and to assuage suffering. A person walking with awareness exudes a confidence that inspires and attracts others, who see. A presence flows through the aware person, a grace and humility, a holiness and love. People who are truly aware communicate the depth of their inner consciousness, their nearness to God or the Spirit, through their presence and their actions" (p 209).
Such a purpose of living becomes a vocation and motivation!
Flowers appear to fulfil a purpose till they fade away !
I ponder over this as the new year is before me !
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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