Thoughts on a Flower

Today I was thinking about flowers...yes flowers.  (And yes, this may have something to do with the cold reminding me of an unfinished project which I really should start up again...)  While thinking about flowers, something interesting occurred to me.

Flowers hold a sense of beauty in our minds.  It doesn't matter the type of flower (except for maybe dandelions...) or the time or year, a flower always holds a certain level of beauty.  We use them for decoration, cutting them and placing them around our houses; for cosmetic purposes, placing them in our hair or on our clothing (I only do this in private...); for perfume, taking their scents to make ourselves smell more beautiful.

But as beautiful as flowers are, they actually have a real purpose for their existence.  And that purpose is fruit, reproduction, survival.  The flower gives way to the fruit of the plant, to the seed, and therefore is the plant's way of propagating itself and thus ensuring survival of the species (do plants have species?... Hmmm).  In other words, in nature, the flower isn't where it's at.  The flower precedes the truly [beautiful?] important part of the plant, the seed.

How often do we find this in our lives?  How often do we miss the truly important parts of our days and weeks because we are distracted by the beautiful things that will pass away?  How often do we see only the temporal advantages of something but miss the truly eternal aspects of it that will only come through time?

How great is God to provide us with something as beautiful as a flower, even though it has no obvious (other than attracting bees and butterflies) purposes?  God could have made flowers just as bland as many other parts of the landscape, but He made them different, He made the stand out?  But that doesn't mean they're more important, in fact, in some ways they're less important than some of the more bland parts of the plant, such as the leaves, or the seeds, or even the roots!

I hope that I'm not simply a flower in the chain of human existence.  I hope that I'm not beautiful and smell nice (well, I do hope I smell at least ok most of the time) but provide no eternal consequence, no beneficial development.  I hope that I don't pass away without first planting seeds that will spring up into a harvest of life to those around me and those to come after me.  I hope that God gives me the grace to be as efficient as a leaf, as beautiful as a flower, and as beneficial as a seed (sorry root, I couldn't think of anything nice to say about you....but I hope I have good roots as well).

The End.

Valentines Day - a story update

I've been scheduling my blog posts out by about a month, so when I write something I schedule it to post at the next available date and follow somewhat of a schedule, that way if I have a week where I write a lot and another week where I don't write at all it evens itself out.

It is February 8th as I write this, though, and the 14th still stand open.  I figured a month ago when I got to this date that I would have something nice and lovely to say for the holiday of love, but it's now only several days away and I still have nothing...until I sat down to write my 14th short story for the 100 theme challenge.  I felt that this story, based on the word smile, would be a perfect Valentines Day fit.  Enjoy.

Julie was jittery that morning.  Why wouldn't she be?  With their youngest out of the house, her ex-husband had contacted her for the first time in fifteen years.  Their divorce had been anything but pretty.  At the time they had three small children who needed a father, so she drug her feet every step through the process.

Her emotions were a mess when she saw him, but his smile dissipated all of her fears.  As they hugged she felt the sharp blade slide through her heart.

A smile is the offer of affection as well as the disguise of contempt.

Yeah...not your typical love story...but you know, just thought I'd share :)

Update on the Project - Short Story #9

Here's the ninth short story for the hundred theme challenge.  If you don't remember, I am writing a 100 word short story for each of the 100 theme words.

He didn’t want to move, in fact he never really wanted to move, mostly because he was always told to move.  Go this way, go that way, go go go.  Arthur was always being commanded, always directed, always controlled.  But it seemed to bother him today more than most, because today he wanted nothing more than to sit and rest.  His job felt like slave labor, his boss a task master, every waking moment being dedicated to the service of others.  But today, as every other day, he passively pulled his cart because that’s what he was told to do.

Update on the Project - Short Story #7

Here's the seventh short story for the hundred theme challenge.  If you don't remember, I am writing a 100 word short story for each of the 100 theme words.

He had been walking and talking with his closest friend for what seemed like an eternity, in fact he had quite lost track of time.  It seemed to his senses that the day had never ended, but he slowly became aware of the fact that it had at least been a number of days since he had last eaten or even slept for that matter.  He briefly mentioned the feeling to his friend with whom he had been walking, but He didn’t seem to find it that odd.  What Enoch didn’t know is that he would never return home again.

short story # 2

Here's the second short story out of the hundred themes that I am attempting to write on.  I'm not going to tell you the theme, you have to guess (if you go to the other blog, though, it'll tell you...)

He looked down at the blood dripping onto his t-shirt, the unmistakable effect of the boot that crushed his skull against the sidewalk.  He felt slightly nauseous, somewhat light-headed, and mostly unable to focus on his surroundings.  But above all else, more than the headache or the confusion, he felt welling up within him the intense emotion that would come to define his very being.  It pushed past the pain - the blood - swallowed up his hurt.  It was the intense desire and longing to heal the pain within the man who could do such a thing to him.

Can you guess what the theme of this story is?  Leave a comment

A Project

I was blog-hopping and came across something I decided to try.  My friend Nathan Lee is taking part in a 100 theme challenge. The basis of the challenge is to write a 100 word short story on each of the 100 theme words.  I am not much of a short story writer, but I have been wanting to get practice in on writing on themes, and I also would like practice at writing narratives, so this seemed like the perfect match.

While I will try to occasionally post some of these short stories, if you would like to peruse all of them, you can simply go to the blog I made for this purpose.  Also, you can go there at any time by clicking the link at the top of this blog titled "The Project".  I don't know how consistent I will be at it, but it should be fun.