Tag Archives: orchids

Life imitating art imitating life

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In last week’s post, I mentioned a recent exhibit my mother and I went to at the North Carolina Museum of Art. The museum has an impressive permanent collection, and each spring, florists descend upon the galleries to interpret works of art using flowers.

Though the exhibit is an annual four-day event, this was the first time for both my mother and me to see it, and I’m so glad we braved the crowds. I only had my cell phone with me, but I thought you might enjoy seeing a few of my favorites from my phone’s camera.

Calla lilies and one of my favorite paintings in the museum

In some cases, as with the arrangement above, I could easily see the inspiration for the colors and shapes of the blooms the artist/florist chose.

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For Ash Wednesday: Ashes and 30 pieces of silver

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I hope you don’t mind if I revisit an old post (from March 2014) this Ash Wednesday. I don’t remember the exact timing of how everything fell into place March 2014, but I’m pretty sure I wrote this post shortly before my husband came home and told me his company was asking us to move. And move we did, all the way across the country. Talk about your seismic shifts.

I still find I want to dust myself off when I’m covered in ashes. I yearn for an easy answer and search for that shiny, clean (happily ever after?) place. I needed to revisit this post for myself, and it occurred to me that some of you might welcome this reminder, too?

Blessings to you this Ash Wednesday, as we enter into Lent and a season of penitence and waiting for the joyful message of Easter.

I had a lighter post planned, but it somehow didn’t seem appropriate for Ash Wednesday, a day of ashes and penance, the beginning of Lent, the time we set aside in the Christian calendar to remember the events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, the weeks we set aside to draw closer to God in advance of Easter.

Last night, I became restless and couldn’t sleep, instead pondering the ways we live in ash heaps and sell our lives and dreams short for 30 pieces of silver. We settle for less than what God has planned and even resort to forcing events in our lives that were not what God hoped for us.

Judas Iscariot did this when he betrayed Jesus. Scholars say he was hoping to force Jesus to finally take up his sword and become the warrior Messiah that Judas and others had been awaiting. Judas betrayed Jesus in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, an amount that equaled four months’ wages. Not worth much, considering the outcome for Judas, who tossed the money back at the high priests before going out to hang himself.

One of my favorite stories involving betrayal is The Great Gatsby. Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald considered naming it something entirely different: Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires? Fitzgerald recognized, and wanted his readers to see, too, that the separation between millionaires and those living among the ashes isn’t as great as our society might want us to believe. Jay Gatsby was popular and enigmatic but couldn’t escape the ash-heaps and betrayal in the end, despite all that his money could buy.

Sometimes we all end up covered in ash. And whether it’s the freeing ashes of penance or the weighed down ashes of our past, we rarely feel comfortable or comforted when covered in ashes.

And maybe that’s why we’re quick to sell out, to dust ourselves off for a mere 30 pieces of silver, to think it’s so easy to grab hold of our dreams and get to a shiny, clean place. But is the place we end up as clean and as shiny as we expected?

I’ve felt a disconcerting seismic shift in my life in the last few months, as if God is moving the underlying plates in my life, and last night, I wrestled to name the shift. I think it has to do with being covered in ashes from the past (not just my own past but others near me, too) and not wanting to take the 30-pieces-of-silver, forced way out. So I’ll wait to see what God has planned for me next. The waiting here is hard.

Just because I’m pondering ashes doesn’t mean I should leave you there, too, right? So if you recall last week’s post and my joy of an orchid bud, here’s what happened this week.

Orchidbloom_2014ft

I couldn’t resist sharing it, even if it has nothing to do with ashes and 30 pieces of silver. It does have everything to do with embracing life, though, and that’s what I plan to do while I’m waiting for God’s next move.

Ashes and 30 pieces of silver

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I had a lighter post planned, but it somehow didn’t seem appropriate for Ash Wednesday, a day of ashes and penance, the beginning of Lent, the time we set aside in the Christian calendar to remember the events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, the weeks we set aside to draw closer to God in advance of Easter.

Last night, I became restless and couldn’t sleep, instead pondering the ways we live in ash heaps and sell our lives and dreams short for 30 pieces of silver. We settle for less than what God has planned and even resort to forcing events in our lives that were not what God hoped for us.

Judas Iscariot did this when he betrayed Jesus. Scholars say he was hoping to force Jesus to finally take up his sword and become the warrior Messiah that Judas and others had been awaiting. Judas betrayed Jesus in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, an amount that equaled four months’ wages. Not worth much, considering the outcome for Judas, who tossed the money back at the high priests before going out to hang himself.

One of my favorite stories involving betrayal is The Great Gatsby. Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald considered naming it something entirely different: Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires? Fitzgerald recognized, and wanted his readers to see, too, that the separation between millionaires and those living among the ashes isn’t as great as our society might want us to believe. Jay Gatsby was popular and enigmatic but couldn’t escape the ash-heaps and betrayal in the end, despite all that his money could buy.

Sometimes we all end up covered in ash. And whether it’s the freeing ashes of penance or the weighed down ashes of our past, we rarely feel comfortable or comforted when covered in ashes.

And maybe that’s why we’re quick to sell out, to dust ourselves off for a mere 30 pieces of silver, to think it’s so easy to grab hold of our dreams and get to a shiny, clean place. But is the place we end up as clean and as shiny as we expected?

I’ve felt a disconcerting seismic shift in my life in the last few months, as if God is moving the underlying plates in my life, and last night, I wrestled to name the shift. I think it has to do with being covered in ashes from the past (not just my own past but others near me, too) and not wanting to take the 30-pieces-of-silver, forced way out. So I’ll wait to see what God has planned for me next. The waiting here is hard.

Just because I’m pondering ashes doesn’t mean I should leave you there, too, right? So if you recall last week’s post and my joy of an orchid bud, here’s what happened this week.

Orchidbloom_2014ft

I couldn’t resist sharing it, even if it has nothing to do with ashes and 30 pieces of silver. It does have everything to do with embracing life, though, and that’s what I plan to do while I’m waiting for God’s next move.

Flurries and flowers

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This morning started with the lightest of flurries. I may have rolled my eyes as I saw the snowflakes flutter down. Spring paid us a visit last week, and some early flowers have started to bud, and after this week’s cold snap, warmer weather is on its way. I’m ready.

Though today started out cloudy and dreary, the sun has come out – not enough to chase the cold away but enough to make the day less dreary.

I wanted to share some of the early spring flowers with you for the same reason. These pictures may not drive the cold away, but maybe they too will take away some dreariness we may feel in the lingering winter.

Because today is a bittersweet day in the calendar for me and several I hold dear – a day that would have been the 12th birthday of one of the sweetest girls I have ever known, a girl who loved purple and wore tiaras as much as possible and turned everyday moments into celebrations, a girl who left us too soon at six years old – for her memory, I want to start with this purple Lenten rose.

PurpleLentenRose_2014ft

A purple beauty

I find these early blooms a solace, a promise that winter will soon leave. And I thrill to walk out in the garden and see what new flower is pushing its way up out of the cold ground.

The crocuses usually come first, and they must have really enjoyed the colder-than-usual winter. They’re showing off more than they typically do:

Crocusblooms_2014ft

Dainty crocus blooms are usually the first whisper of spring

The other Lenten rose varieties also seem to have thrived through this winter, and I’m enjoying the different varieties.

HappiestLentenRose_2014ft

Pink Lenten roses, the happiest of my Hellebores

LentenRosebud_2014ft

I love how this one looks like a tiny inverted tulip.

LentenRose_2014ft

This variety is producing flowers for the first time, and I’m excited to see them open.

Just yesterday, I noticed my hyacinth bulbs poking up through the mulch. They were a Valentine’s gift from my husband several years ago, and I’m always happy when they come back in February.

Hyacinthbeginning_2014ft

New life among the squirrels’ winter leftovers

Orchid babies!
Even inside the house, there’s new life abloom.

On Saturday, we had some friends over, and one of them wandered in from the room where I keep two orchids – one a gift from my husband and the other a gift from my mother-in-law.

My friend is great with plants, but she enthused about how well my orchids are doing. “I always kill mine, but yours have babies!” she said, wanting to know my secret.

My secret is that I’m following my mother-in-law’s advice and spraying them with a bottle filled with water and orchid food. These are the first two orchids I’ve managed to keep alive for any length of time, and I was happy a few weeks back when I noticed the one from my husband had sprouted new leaves. I’m optimistic, but even if there are no new blooms, I’m content that it’s still living and growing after more than two years here.

Orchidbabies_2014ft

Maybe this one will bloom again?

I was looking at both of them again later that evening and noticed something new on the other orchid, the one from my mother-in-law. I don’t know how I had missed it, but there it was:

Orchidbloom_2014ft

Getting ready to bloom

This will be the first orchid I’ve ever had bloom from “scratch.” And considering that I usually commiserate with orchids when they come into my home, sad that they couldn’t go to a better home for their own sakes, I’m pretty darn excited about the prospect of this one opening up.

For all you orchid growers out there, any tips on repotting? I’d love to transplant both into permanent pots instead of the plastic ones they came in, but maybe I should just leave well enough alone?

For the rest of you, what flowers signal the promise of spring? Do you have a favorite that you look for each year? What ways have flowers given you solace?

An abundance of stress, the stress of abundance

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Happy Thanksgiving to you! (Most of my readers are from the US, and so I hope the rest of you non-US readers will also celebrate tomorrow with gratitude, even if it doesn’t mean family gatherings and eating too much turkey.)

I only have time for a short post today, and I’m guessing you may not have time to read a longer post anyway. Family is coming, and my to-do list doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter. I was running errands this morning trying to figure out how to avoid letting stress overwhelm me this holiday season.

That desire to get control over what feels like an over-abundance of holiday stress juxtaposed itself with the image of a woman and child waiting with some small suitcases in the vestibule of homeless shelter where I volunteer with a group of church friends once a month. When I was there on Monday, it was a white flag night, meaning the temperature was expected to drop below freezing, and shelters in the area would try to accommodate greater numbers of homeless for the night.

The air was full of scramble and buzz and extra activity as folks waited for word of where they could spend the night – there, at another shelter or out on the street. Residents of the shelter added to the hubbub as they sorted through bags and bags of donated coats that crowded the small lobby, grouping the coats by size to make them easier to distribute.

The scramble that night was entirely different, a more dire kind of scrambling than the sort you may be experiencing today: the scramble for the last trip to the grocery store, or the scramble to wrap up work early, or the scramble to pass everyone else on the highway so you can get to Grandma’s house first, or the scramble to figure out just how everything will fit into a refrigerator that suddenly feels two sizes too small.

Both types of scramble bring stress, but one represents a stress of abundance, a stress that comes from having the option to run to three different grocery stores for your Thanksgiving meal supplies and the option to go to the big box store for extra guest towels and the option to fight traffic to drive to visit relatives near or far.

For too many, though, those options of abundance simply do not exist, and their stressors may mean the difference between life and death on white flag nights. There’s no money for groceries or towels. There’s no car. There are no guests coming to visit because there is no home.

So might I encourage you to take a deep breath when stress threatens to overwhelm you in the coming days? I plan to use those moments as a way to offer up a quick prayer of gratitude for the abundance that is causing the stress. In addition to prayers of thanks, might you consider a donation of food or time or money to your own local shelter? It may be just what you need to put your own abundance of stress into perspective.

Before I close, let me say it again: Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m thankful for you stopping by for a visit today and would love to leave you with a couple of photos from the Orchid House at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, a visit earlier this year that still leaves me filling grateful for the beauty I found there.

ATLOrchids_2013 ATLOrchidsCloseup_2013

What are you most grateful for this holiday?