Wild and Beautiful and Perfectly in Process

I love flowers.  One of the most exciting things about Spring approaching is seeing all the flowers starting to come out.  I don't really like formal flowers that much.  I prefer more cottagey (is this a word?) bouquets, imperfect and thrown together.  I like to mix in rosemary and lavender and leaves from non flowering plants in amongst blooms from the garden. 

A few years ago I read a book called "The Shack".  It's an extraordinary book. 

Mackenzie Allen Phillips's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in this midst of his great sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his life forever.

Beside the shack is a garden....

Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) shows Mack a messy, fractal garden. The garden is full of colors, herbs, flowers, plants. Mack describes it as a “chaos in color”…”confusing, stunning, and incredibly beautiful.” As they walk, Sarayu picks various herbs and plants and flowers, giving them to Mack and creating a bouquet.This garden is his OWN SOUL, that he lays witness to. Mack says how, though the garden is a mess, he somehow feels strangely comfortable in it. Sarayu says, “And well you should, Mackenzie, because this garden is your soul—this mess is you! Together, you and I, we have been working with a purpose in your heart. And its wild and beautiful and perfectly in process. To you it seems messy, but to me, I see a perfect pattern emerging and growing and alive—a living fractal.”

I love the idea that our souls are "wild and beautiful and perfectly in process".

I'm not going to say it's an easy read, far from it.  In fact, the first few chapters were hard going and I almost didn't persist with it.  At the time, so many people had recommended it to me I felt I just had to read it and so I pushed on with it and it completely changed my view on so many aspects of life and God.

Anyway back to my point, flowers and Springtime......

Lisianthus are by far my favourite flower.  I love their delicate petals and their ragged sort of look.  They don't have a strong perfume which I prefer. 

Now this might sound a bit harsh because really, how can you hate a flower?  However, I have to say that I despise Anthuriums.  I think when God created them he was havin' a laff.  The sticky-outy bit is disgusting and sheds pollen which stains and the flower istself looks like plastic. Hate 'em.