Consider the lavender

Few things lift my spirits more than having fresh flowers in the house.   I’m blessed to have rosebushes that give and give without counting the cost, so for a good part of the year, I get to enjoy beauties like these.

The other day, though, I was surveying my rosebushes, and the pickings were pretty slim.  The pink ones were between blooms, and many of the white ones were rendered undisplay-able due to pest damage ( I curse you, thrips! shaking of fist).   I’d be waiting a few days, it seemed, for my fresh flower fix.

And then I thought of the lavender bush in the front flowerbed.  It’s been there for a few years, but this spring, I swear it seems to have doubled  in size. ( It’s like the phenomenon that happens all the time to high school teachers: you run into the junior who was in your class as a tiny freshman, and he’s suddenly towering over you like an NBA player.)    I looked at the lavender, with its purply gray-green lushness,  and thought: You’re coming into the house with me.

Dodging the fat black bumblebees, I snipped several stalks.   Once I was done I put it all in a little green vase on my prayer table, and I can’t tell you how happy that little bouquet makes me.  As I sit here and read or write or meditate, I pause periodically to rub the flowers, and I drink in one of the most intoxicating scents God ever created.

It’s a very good pairing, lavender and prayer.  I’m glad I had  a reason to try it.