Fellow Living Creatures

Lately I often see people on street corners holding bouquets. What purpose will these flowers, wrapped in colorful paper, go on to serve? My curiosity is stirred.

For the most part I can imagine a flower’s role from the clothing and expression of the person carrying it, but I often feel doubts about the way the flowers are designed and wrapped.

It pains me deeply to see arrangements bundled as though the flowers were mere “things,” with no love felt from their maker, or wrapping that ignores the colors and shapes the flowers possess. Since flowers are not “things” but “living things,” it must surely be a person’s sincerity toward flowers to design them with thought for the preciousness of one flower meeting another, and to give them wrapping in which the flowers would feel at ease.

And when a flower accepts that feeling, it will surely show a power beyond its own role or standing.