Finding harmony: A morning walk among the flowers

I often walk the nearby campus of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community for exercise or as a break from my job at MennoMedia. From March to November, a wide array of flowers can be found. I used to walk this ground while a student at Eastern Mennonite University when it was “only” a pasture field filled with cows and cow pies. It was a place for me to escape back to my farm roots.

It is not lost on me that someday I may walk this campus as a VMRC resident; I certainly don’t have my name on a waiting list, but one never knows. It is a good place. I’m told that some flower beds are planted and groomed by residents who choose the varieties. So on a recent morning I “picked” (by photo only) some gems to share. Stroll with me and enjoy.

Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
Song of Songs 2:11-13

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. Luke 12:26-28

All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,but the word of the Lord endures forever. I Peter 1: 24-25

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1: 11-12

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. Song of Solomon 2:1

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into.  ~Henry Beecher, Life Thoughts

Earth laughs in flowers.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Hamatreya”

I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck.  ~Emma Goldman

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill”

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.  ~Walt Whitman

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.  ~Chinese Proverb

Why do people give each other flowers?  To celebrate various important occasions, they’re killing living creatures?  Why restrict it to plants?  “Sweetheart, let’s make up.  Have this deceased squirrel.”  ~The Washington Post

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.  ~The Koran

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.  ~Claude Monet

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

Bible quotations from Bible Gateway.

Flower quotations found at http://www.quotegarden.com/flowers.html