There will be flowers

Water seeds, make breakfast, no tv, no phone, push through the morning routine. Do you have your track shoes? Lunchboxes? Yes, I’ll order uniforms today. 

Drop kids at school. Drive home. Walk the dog. Look at the calendar. Answer emails. Open Instagram. Read a poem by maryoliversdrunkcousin. Find out which city is now under siege from our government. Discover which group of people is now the focus of our nation’s collective hatred. Quietly shed a tear for people I do not know and for the country I do. Look for the helpers. Drop an email to my Senators because it’s not even 8:00 am and no one is answering their phones.

Wonder aloud to the cat what atrocity will happen today? Bookmark the donation page for the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund in Minnesota. Turn on the dishwasher. 

Then, I go to work. Conveniently, that work is in my yard. 

Six years ago, we bought 10 acres of land a few miles from our beloved university and literally planted ourselves here to raise kids and start anew. My husband started with a new company and I started my second career as a flower farmer. 

I traded my heels for boots, sermons for social media, and committee meetings for conversations with the birds. I grow and sell flowers commercially in a niche profession known as “farmer-florist.” I do what florists do, using my own farm-grown flowers.  

I share my farm on social media, gaining followers and hopefully customers. But how can I post pictures of pretty flowers right now? We have hit Anne Frank levels of fear and moral failing. I spent most of January wondering, “How can I post flowers right now?”

While I wondered, I found myself ordering 200 lily bulbs and starting 1,500 seeds last month. Then I started 600 seeds in February. Nature is a powerful force that I am learning to let lead. I have complete faith in the bulbs and seeds—they know what to do, despite what’s happening above ground. There will be flowers. 

Did you know snapdragons grow better closer together? They actually grow stronger and taller when placed right next to each other.

And peonies, highly prized and expensive, get cut to the literal ground each fall and will grow back sturdier with more blooms every spring?

And sunflowers—they really do follow the sun! Their heads will turn as the sun moves throughout the day. 

Grow close, pruning makes us stronger, follow the light. 
Fun flower facts or life lessons? 

This is my ‘thing to do’ in this horrid mess of a time right now: grow flowers and grow kids (probably another article). So I will keep planting and I will keep posting. For several reasons.

1. Flowers know how to bloom. It is inside them. 
2. I want my business to stay open so I can give to organizations doing good work and support the people who are inspiring me. 
3. It gives me purpose, and honestly, growing flowers mended my broken heart. (That’s another article, too.) 
4. No society exists without beauty and joy. 

I can offer flowers. In person and in pretty pictures online.  

Years ago, I preached about the cellist of Sarajevo, the true story of a cellist who played his cello on top of a pile of rubble after a deadly mortar attack in the besieged city of Sarajevo. Beauty in the midst of destruction. I have never forgotten that story. 

Beauty pushes through the soil of suffering because, like flowers, it knows what to do.

Beauty reminds us that all is not lost; life endures; hope is alive. 

Monks offer a peace walk. Ukrainians pause at 9:00 am every single day to honor those who have lost their lives. Potters create resistance pottery with choice words on it. Mutual aid centers appear. Volunteers in orange vests wait nightly with coats, coffee, and cash for detainees to be released into the Minnesota darkness. Moms gather to read banned books. Money is donated. Experts give time and knowledge away freely. Blue hats with bunny ears are knitted. Teenagers walk out in protest.   

There will be flowers.