Camas Lilies

Prompt: lynnungar.com/camas-lilies-2/

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When I see the field of blue camas lilies in my mind's eye,
what do I see?
I see the beauty of straight stems, crowned with sky.
I see the nourishment of native families and the fodder of animals.
Neither takes a place of priority; these plants are equally beautiful and useful.
If these lilies had not been useful to the native Americans who nurtured their growth, would they be there still in such profusion?
Such confusion.
Why should I only find beauty in escaping work?
Why not imbue my work, my usefulness, with beauty, too?
Why imply that beauty is of no use?
Beauty feeds the spirit just as bread made from roots nourishes the body.
The body benefits from a joyful spirit.
The spirit benefits from a strong, sound body.
May I work in beauty.
May I walk in beauty.
May I breathe in beauty.
May I bloom in beauty.
Beauty all around me, nourishing both body and spirit,

—Donna Birdwell

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I'm not into lilies today. I moaned that would be the prompt as I drove here.

Earlier I had heard that the fifth person had died in the attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem. A vicious attack, where their shawls were lying in the blood, like the Holocaust, one of the victims said.

Lilies in the field. Are there any such things? The other day someone was telling me that heaven was on earth, and, gazing out on the lilies, we might believe that. But then this or that happens, and... where is heaven?

I did mention to my heaven on earth friend that the idyllic heaven would be boring. Where would the challenges be? Where would the opportunity be to bloom, if everything were already bloomed like the lilies?

Such contrast. A pristine field of lilies, blooming their hearts out, and the shawls, laying in blood, telling a story we don't want to hear.

Do we walk in the fields and feel the wind caress our faces? Do we watch the news with a box of tissues to catch the tears?

My mom didn't want me to see the hellish side of life. She thought the challenges were enough without the sad. She hid an obituary of someone I admired so it would interfere with my schoolwork. We never went to funerals. She always maintained she lived on “heaven on earth.” After she passed, we read in her diary how depressed she actually was. But she didn't want to share that amongst the lilies. We needed our opportunity to bloom, she thought.

—Kim Mosley