Thought for the Week
I took this photo of magnolia buds on a recent walk. It may be the only time I’ve ever snapped a shot of tree buds. In fact, I rarely even notice them. Instead, early each spring I look at the “empty” tree limbs and wonder when they’ll ever “come to life.”
But of course, they already have.
Long before any signs appear, life is at work within them. And then the first signs—tiny, nascent buds—become visible. But only to those who look closely.
When we moved to Ohio, I noticed that redbuds were among the first trees to blossom in the spring, and that, although their flowers were beautiful, they were pink, not red.
“So why are they called redbuds,” I wondered aloud.
“Well, duh,” my wife gently replied, “because their buds are red.”
Why hadn’t I noticed that? Because I’d never actually looked at their buds. Once I did, I realized they had a beauty of their own, a subtle slow-growing beauty.
How many people are like that? Tragically, some never reach full flower at all. But others simply take a long, long time to get there. And so we fail see their sleepily developing promise of beauty. Instead, we see only their rough and scarred bark.
Maybe, if we look closer, we’ll learn to see the nascent good in others, to recognize their slow-growing beauty. And when we do…
Maybe they’ll even see it in us.
And some of us aren’t exactly beauties when we finally publish a first book at the age of 75, and hope for book two’s publication before we turn 77! Tenacity trumps talent, and even beauty!
Love this analogy. Truth and beauty.
I remember how insulted my young college classmates and I would get when our writing was deemed “promising.”
;>)
Lovely
Good grief. You just smacked me upside the head with this post.
That isn’t a complaint, by the way. ;<)
So true! That reminds me of the children’s book, “Leo the late-bloomer.” And the best line in that book was the final one, “And, in his own good time, Leo bloomed!”
What a wonderful metaphor… and a good “soul nudge,” too.
Thanks, Russ.
I had been in this house for 5 years, my husband has been for 13. two years back I took time to go on roof for half hour and discovered that common mynah, that I have seen since childhood, actually has four variations with strong colour differences. We see when we want to see. Most of us trudge through life without caring.
My husband still hasn’t seen those four variety
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Good
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