Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time tending to our gardens. We have a vegetable garden in the back yard and a flower garden surrounding our front porch. We use the vegetables to make fresh salads, and infuse olive oil with herbs and spices. The flowers bring such joy into our world. I love flowers – they are beautiful, unique, awe-inspiring.
Flowers thrive by proper nurture and care, just enough sun and just enough water. But, it’s funny, though, because if you look really close, the most beautiful flowers are flawed. If I were to pick apart the flowers petal by petal I would notice some perfect, shiny, bright petals, and some crinkled, some brown, some slighted wilted ones. I guess if a flower was just perfect with shiny, bright petals only it wouldn’t be real – it would be synthetic.
This makes me think about people. Every human being is beautiful and every one of us is flawed, too. Collectively, our “layers” combine to create a unique, deep, real exquisite person. We function best when we take proper care of ourselves. But, even still, if we were to ‘pick apart our petals’, we would notice some aspects of our lives are wilted, a little brown.
If we choose to focus solely on the “brown petals”, we may feel worthless and not want to nourish ourselves, share our gifts, or even show up in the world. We’ve all made mistakes, we all have life imperfections, but with continued care, we can blossom and thrive regardless.
Today, choose to look at yourself (and others) without picking apart the petals. Notice the depth, the layers. Nurture yourself and others well, and soon you will only see the collective beauty of our humanity.
