Emulate a flower.
Please discuss. How does this play out in life?
I’ll start us out. In life, we urge ourselves to find and use good role models. Generally they are people who have been successful in some avenue of life—politics, religion, the arts, sports, social issues, education, business. We admire their accomplishments and best traits and try to learn how to be like them. We may read their writings, listen to their presentations and interviews, follow them on social media, and study their life history to find a pattern to their success, so we can imitate them. We hitch our progress to their star to elevate ourselves.
In looking to other humans to model, we narrow our possible pool of life teachers to just one species when all of creation can instruct us. If we broaden our sights, we can see that all of life has something to show us.
There is perhaps no more widely loved and enjoyed potential role model than the flower. Beautiful, often fragrant, humble, simple in its needs, benevolent in interactions, generous in sharing itself with the world around it—the flower espouses universally recognized virtues. It requires little and benefits many. It shines, inspires, and pleases us wherever it grows. It doesn’t long to be where it is not or to be something it is not. It gracefully offers itself for appreciation and mutual well being. In being exquisitely itself, it embodies perfection. If does not care how it is received, it simply is itself in all its loveliness.
Today’s message reminds me to keep it simple and be exactly who I am. I don’t need to reinvent myself. It’s enough to bloom in place right where I am now and offer up my gifts. The world will perceive me as it will. My lesson is to enjoy opening up to share in light and happiness.
How about you? What might a flower have to teach you?