The Zinnia Princess

 

                                                           

Creamy, tender skin is iridescent in morning light, plumped with life, like it's been filled to its capacity with the morning dew. It is the small hand of the Zinnia Princess, and she is out in her garden again. She points a decisive finger at her first choice, a voluptuous, hot pink bloom.

“Wowwer”, she aptly calls it. I, and all the others in the garden are hushed and stunned by this unexpected declaration. A light breeze jiggles the stems of the congregation and gives the flowers a responsive shutter as they receive the honor of their new name; “Wowwer”, indeed.

She reaches forward, clutching a chosen stem and I, her most humble servant, cut it loose from the plant with my pruning shears. She reaches again to fill her other hand; there is more than enough. She picks a coral pink this time, the perfect complement, a brilliant choice. The faint rippling of applause from the rosemary bush looses its fragrance with the sudden enthusiasm, and the aroma wafts into the air. 

 I carry her around the south side where a red zinnia wowwer blooms scantily along the picket fence painted a cedar color. Only three red blooms today. She will not pick any of these.

I, toting the princess on my hip, step over the stone border and enter the garden. I sit the princess down atop the mulch-covered ground and she drops her stems while reaching her hands up to hold mine. She disappears between the tomato and the okra, needing some assistance she is generously willing to take me along with her. It is a morning immersion, and she invites me along into her exploration. She is young-wise and I can easily see she feels there is much here to discover. I am intrigued. 

Her pause pales the importance of the ticking time in my head and the rush to get off into the business of the day. Her slow and purposeful gaze into tomato tangles is unique in these parts and I think I must imitate her if I possibly can. 

I glance down into the glossy pools of her dark eyes and find the stirring waters there.  Now I realize I had at some point wandered away in pursuit of something else less worthy and less wonderful. My heart lurches as two tears break free to race down my cheeks, and I feel the familiar, subtle stir in me once again. Wisdom hushes me, shutting me up to hear.  If I am willing, it will open me to see and to learn with this Zinnia Princess, Princess of the Wowwers. Like the Pools of Bethesda where the wounded and ailing rushed to moving waters for healing, she is sensitive to the effervescence all around us. She has just recently arrived from God's heart, and the glinting of His kingdom is still upon her though she is unaware. So, she has come to preside over this garden, insistent in its mystery, and with an infant's watchful eye.        

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

 I slow myself and I follow her gaze flower to flower, and it becomes obvious to me why she has innocently insisted on a more expressive name, calling sorry eyes back to the WOW in a zinnia again. This is a most appropriate and sensible response in a dulled world, dutifully looking into the small boxes ever in our hands. She leans a soft nose straight into the brilliant color and sniffs it, pulling the subtle scent wildly into herself, and blowing it rapidly out, almost violently she breaths the scent in and out then turning her attention towards me, she points the pollen covered stamen at my face and demands I do the same. So, I do. And so, I yet will.  

Except you become like a little child...