Usually, flowers on a stick are artificial. My introduction to orchid flowers has taught me yet again that things are not always what they seem on the surface.
Two years ago, the first orchid entered our home as a gift. Beautiful, vibrantly coloured, luxurious, that orchid looked like real flowers on a stick. Those blooms lasted ten dazzling weeks. When the flowers finally dried up and fell, they left very dead-looking sticks with three large green leaves languishing at soil level. Grey roots reached eerily out of the pot. That stick and its pot sat for a year hiding behind my porcelain angels on top of the china cabinet. Dutifully I gave the stick its weekly three ice cubes hoping someday it might bloom again.
Last year on my birthday, I received my second orchid. This time, there were two sticks dressed up in a delicate pink. These flowers bloomed for nine weeks. Again, the petals fell, leaving the bare sticks. “Should I just throw both pots out?” I asked my daughter-in-law. She suggested repotting. Nothing happened. One day, I had water containing cactus fertilizer left over in my watering can. I walked by the sticks. Why not? Could it do any harm? They’re both just leaves and sticks. What have I to lose?
Within a month, I saw buds form on the sticks. Another month and more water and the buds began to swell. This year, for my birthday once again, I have beautiful flowers. All three sticks are blooming profusely.
When Jesus told the story of the gardener who requested a second chance for an olive tree, he was telling us, with God, we always have a second, a third and more chances. In fact, with God we have as many as we need in order to bloom. Too often, we humans see only dried up sticks. What else would you call the beggar on the street corner with his cardboard sign, “Homeless hungry need work”. What about the store clerk serving us, covered in tattoos and punctured with body piercings? It is hard work to love our own or another’s teenager who is determined to disparage or ignore our values. It’s easy to see them as dead sticks asking to be tossed out. Religion, race, gender identification, economic class, physical size, all tempt us to consign people to the garbage heap. Our judgement is even harsher when we turn it on ourselves. After all, we do fail to live up to our own expectations. It’s so easy to judge a person worthless.
Orchids offer me a lesson we all know and too often forget, maybe because of fear, frustration, or failure. When I sign my children’s books, I write, “Always remember you are God’s precious child.” Jesus taught us that God does not give up on any of us. God keeps trying a little care, a little love.
Jesus suggests the gardener give the barren fruit tree more manure for another season. We’re asked to risk some experimental fertilizer as well. Maybe just one more dose of love will bring the miracle. It takes a lot of patience and God’s help to give us the surprise of new life. Like the orchid, buried in that human being is more beauty that we could ever have imagined. With God’s help, maybe we can be the source of new life.
Today’s Faith by Rev. Janet Stobie