Consider the Lilies

This has been a week. Work pressures have been rising to a boil. Yesterday I had my first migraine in probably six or seven years. Last night I hardly slept. All week I’ve been pondering something my Pastor said in his message Sunday. Then today, we had the Federal Reserve Chairman Show which whipsawed the market while I was on the road between turning down money from a client and a doctor’s appointment. Like I said, its been a week.

So I walk out onto the patio late this afternoon amidst all of the tumult that life has become these past few days and am astonished by this…

Don’t ask he what kind of flower it is. All I know is that it is part of one of those overpriced plant and flower arrangements they sell at Strange’s. I paid a ridiculous amount of money for it back in April or May to Pam’s great delight, then sat it out on the patio and neglected it all summer. While we were in Maine, the kids next door were charged with watering it along with everything else we wanted to keep alive while we were away. Despite our indifferent care, it thrives still in mid September. This particular bloom is nearly five feet high, and caught my eye as I walked down the deck steps. I took a closer look, examining all the rich detail of the thing, and was mesmerized by the intricacy, the vibrant, glowing color and the symmetric artistry. All the while, life has been speeding by, buffeting us from all sides, but out in my back yard, this lonely plant has not been deterred from becoming what it was created to be…a work of art. It matters not if we gaze upon it, whether or not we even acknowledge it doesn’t have the slightest effect. This flower has been out here night and day, under blue skies and darkest night, withstanding rain, hail, drought and neglect. And it has done it all just so this thing of astonishing beauty would spring forth and catch the eye of a besieged 64 year old man feeling sorry for himself. I stood there for several minutes, then snapped this photograph to remind myself of the moment. As I did a verse from one of the Gospels writers came to mind, the words of Jesus:

…Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither labor nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all of his glory clothed himself like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you? Oh you of little faith…