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I have faith in my flowers.

by Colby Joyner  
8/11/2007 / Relationships

I wrote this at the end of my tenure in Gatlinburg, TN with Campus Crusade for Christ. It's about the anticipated evolution of relationships between me and the other members of Crusade.

It's hardly ever quiet here. You know, that deafening quiet that shatters your equilibrium until you become slightly aware that the Earth is moving. Quiet. As summer project comes to a close, this is one of the things I will be soaking up during my few days of rest before returning to school. Although, it seems that I may get home, relax, and then find myself not relaxed at all, for I am away from those friends that I have found myself relying on for nine weeks now. And some things with them were just blooming too.

There's no spilt milk, but perhaps it would be worth sitting here watching spilt blooms scatter upon the floor. But, they're only scattered if I let them fall. Let them fall I must, for some. I walk through other gardens in places past Gatlinburg, picking with arms I call location and time, smelling with things I call coincidence. But, some rely on some other resource, some drive that makes me nurture these flowers past their native garden. They won't go in a vase on my shelf; they'll more likely be planted again and nurtured from afar, with me travelling the necessary hours to visit them again.

I've tried to find the reason, but I cannot tell. There are certain things that make things attractive from near and afar, but when I'm really close all I care about is how it smells, how it feels. I don't know why some smell sweeter than others. Perhaps it's some divine guidance showing me that it's worthwhile. Perhaps it's me being selfish by choosing those that give me the most joy. Sometimes I wish that I could water these flowers without a face, which seems strange considering these floral bonds known as friendship and more rely on knowing who their gardener is, for the other gardener that I see passing by for each plant must do the same as I to see any growth.

These sweet smelling flowers have no vase, but rather a face. That face is normally smiling and no vase would dare try to limit their growth. Scared I am that I may forget patience, forget time, and tear their roots with a monsoon of purpose, weathering all that had flourished before. It has occurred to me that truth does not cause this weathering and thus cannot be withheld for fear of damage, but rather its selfishness and anxiety that tears at the roots between me and my common fellow gardeners, stopping by our own paired, respective flowers for a nod and a watering.

The sincere gardeners, the ones with the utmosts of intention and the utmost of utmosts of execution while still being so aware of their inherent weedsthose almost always smell the sweetest. They aren't paranoid, they're truthful, and they give you what you really need instead of what you really want. They cry when they feel like it and don't look back to see if it scared anyone, for a sense of vulnerability is the only sense that we really should embrace as more than temporary, for it is usually the true meaning of a soul lamenting towards something that has held it back for so long.

I will not toss my water carelessly, nor my seeds. Only those who smell the sweetest will gain the opportunity for mutual nurturing that makes it possible in anyone's life to share a full grown Oak or Willow with one other, sitting on branches together as you watch the ever-so-temporary tree grow into its withering, remembering how temporary it is, remembering how temporary human love is.

The problem is mutual, finding that mutual, and you may not have verbal agreement from that who toils next to you, but you can feel them toiling. It feels oh so good upon the fields of temporary.

So I will continue with this, the trees planted too quickly and poisoned with misplaced fertilizer shall not discourage me. One can never give up on a tree as long as long as the fellow gardener stays, no matter how dead it may seem.

For it was once a seed, once a flower, now a tree. Or perhaps it's not even yet a tree at all. I'm in college; you won't really get trees yet. That's fine. But I have faith in my flowers.

And I will speak of their beauty openly, for this face is attached as clearly as my heart is to the plant, to the fellow gardener.

I have faith in my flowers because I have faith in the sun that feeds them. I have faith in the Son that feeds them.

Colby Joyner is a full-time student at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington; he is currently studying Spanish.

He thoroughly enjoys getting feedback or comments on his works and can be reached at [email protected]

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