The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom
// by Alice Walker
Rebellious. Living.
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes.
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self.
Photo | Wikimedia Commons
Last spring, the weather played tricks on our gardens. One week we’d have record high temperatures, which encouraged the flowers to rise up from the ground; the next, a hard frost would strike without warning, forcing the flowers to shrivel and retract their half-bloomed ends.
Some of the flowers did not recover from this stress. The elemental crush defeated them — their colors and true form never to be realized by the outside world.
The Nature of This Life Is to Love & Create
Just like the flower Alice Walker describes in her poem, each one of us is a living song of color and wonder. But here’s where I digress from Walker: unlike the flowers she speaks of, which bloom gloriously for themselves, I think our lives should flourish as an outpouring of love for others. Positive change takes place when we use our creativity to help others.
We are God’s creation, a tangible proof of his love. The mountains, the sky, the seas, the butterflies, even you and I are a reflection of the greatest creator of all time. He made the world out of nothing; He made beauty from ashes.
God continues to form beautiful works out of ruins, and we too can make beauty out of the darkness that often encases this world. We do this when we sing our own song, when we create original works, when we bloom gloriously for all to see and when we love others without expectation.
Some of us will fall prey to the elemental crush and miss the opportunity to shine. Others will struggle to realize their place and potential, never fully blooming. But then there are those who aren’t afraid to rise up and burst forth. This kind of radiance has the power to change lives.
So what’s holding us back? What keeps us from loving and creating?
If man is made in God’s own image, how could we keep from sharing our ideas with deserving eyes?
Maybe it’s fear. Indifference. Sorrow. Doubt. Whatever it is, know that out of everyone on Earth, no one else thinks like you do. Your ideas are original and they matter. How you use them, and what you use them for, is what counts.
