Dear Reader:

Saturday I went to find flowers in my garden to fill the jar sitting on my dining room table. As I was pouring water and then placing the coleus, long leaf sunflowers, yellow mandevilla blooms and multi-colored zinnias into the jar…a sense of euphoria swept over me. I don’t have to go to the store now to buy flowers…they are just outside my door.

I planted seeds and bulbs last fall and early spring… and now look at what I had….a jar full of all the colors of the rainbow. As I stared closely at each intricate detail created in each bloom…I wondered again, for about the umpteenth time…how can anyone not believe in a Higher Power when you witness a miracle in each detail of creation.

For five years now I have studied this cycle of life…through the eyes of my garden’s occupants…some plants and flowers are weathered “veterans”(perennials/and the ‘you can count on me to come back each year-lantana– while others are “fresh” as a daisy in their first year’s appearance (annual)…*though I have been lucky to have three pots of Gerber daisies come back and thrive this year.

Gardening is a never-ending act of love…even though gardeners get a small respite during the winter months…with the climate changes…even this time has dwindled….especially when the azaleas start blooming in January and February now.

Gardening teaches that there is not a period after the word LOVE – Every act of life has only a temporary ending…in preparation for a new beginning.

Mandy has Eva Cate signed up for the summer library reading program in Mt. Pleasant to help her increase her vocabulary and phonics skills. When I was over at their house Friday…Mandy timed Eva Cate reading one story to me while I acted as the prompt…encouraging her with sounding out new words.

About 2/3 of the way through I started to realize that Eva Cate wasn’t concentrating on the word in front of her…instead I saw her index finger sliding down the words in the sentence. Then she sighed and said, “Boo Boo…Look how long this sentence is…I have all these words to get through to get to the dot.” 

“The dot?” I asked momentarily puzzled. Eva Cate pointed to the period at the end of the sentence. I had to laugh. It must have felt to her that she was entering a frontier with all these unknown words (the enemy) popping up between her and the finish line.

Life feels that way to us sometimes doesn’t it? We look at the tough issues today of race, immigration, class/economic disparity, religion, diversity, intolerance, etc. and we all want a period…a “dot”  to bring closure to these moral dilemmas that continue to envelope our country and divide us as a nation.

Instead, at best, we only get commas  and the problems continue.

So until tomorrow… God doesn’t put “dots” or periods in our lives and/or even at the end of them…because He wants us to do what we know is right and what He sent His son to teach us about love and building a Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood  on a global scale…instead of compartments.

*Remember:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A wonderful 4 Year Old Birthday -Superheroes Galore!