My neighbor’s peonies blossomed long before mine and are bigger and more vibrant. What gives?
Perhaps she is better than me, and that means her peonies are superior too. I mean, maybe she has done everything she is supposed to do and is being rewarded with beautiful peonies. I know she is a good person – kind to the old people who live by themselves, and she treats everyone with respect, probably pays her taxes, and gives to charity. I also know I have a couple moral deficits from my past that probably work against me in this, not to mention obvious defects of character, so maybe the peony deficit is my punishment.
On the other hand, sometimes peonies that blossom slowly bloom longer. Peonies that some might view as defective or disabled, may simply be that way in order to promote an unexpected good. Maybe my peonies haven’t bloomed with vigor yet so that everyone will think God has abandoned us only to discover in a few weeks, we have the biggest, most amazingly vibrant peonies in the neighborhood! That’s it. It is a trial to test my faith and to teach my neighbors a lesson about pride.
But why did the little peony bush in the back die over the winter? It was so tender and sweet, totally innocent and it never did anything to any other peony. Maybe God just wanted that little peony in heaven. Surely God loved that peony so much that God killed it in order that it would bloom in heaven. You think?
I have a friend who says, “peonies just happen.” That’s all, peonies happen. Sometimes they happen with splendor, sometimes they happen with average flowering, and sometimes they happen like mine now. But he says it is all just random. If I thought peonies just happened, then why would I ever fertilize, prune, water or do anything to take care of my peonies? If there is nothing we can do to protect our peonies from random events in life – there is no reward or punishment for being a good or bad gardener – then why not just go out at night and destroy our neighbors’ nice peonies while saturating our own with fertilizers and weed killers that pollute the earth but cause our peonies to grow to enormous size? Does being a good gardener have motives deeper or stronger than the reward of its outcomes?
Then again, sometimes I think we do not understand peonies at all. Why some peonies prosper and others do not may have a lot to do with measurable data, like soil enzymes and biome, gardener aptitude, knowledge, and skill, and weather patterns. But even then, there is a gap in what we know and do and the peony outcomes that happen. Some will attribute that to the peonies themselves, some to the gardener, some to a sacred mystery. Rather than the various gardening clubs fighting about it, it seems better to me to just admit no one really knows and enjoy the peonies in all their strange and wonderful varieties.
There are peonies growing in my yard but honestly, I do not understand them.
There was a time I thought the same about my children. Now I realize their perfection is inherited.
I wonder if they recognize that?
Father Cam — we have lived in the same house in Indpls. for over 50 years. In all those years the peony
bush next to the garage has survived on its own, produced blooms about the time of the Indy 500
Race. We have never trimmed it, nor have we fertilized it. It is much like the love of God — always
there, no matter how much we have attended to it.
Now, for contrast our neighbor to the south, now that she is a widow, is feeding the birds regularly.
A Carlina wren is the one with the strikingly amazing bird calls all through the day. It is fun trying
to say words that sound like that call.
We did not feed the birds, but we benefit by having a neighbor who does feed them. It is not
the only thing she does that benefits everyone around her.
She did not need a “confession of faith” to feed the birds, but without intending it, she has
inspired others of us to say, “Thank God!”
Great story!
none in bloom ..just buds….here in Holland…spring is so late!! me too on occasion..
Coming soon to a Vermont garden near you!
I’m of the mind that there is considerable randomness within an overall tendency towards abundant life. That does not make mankind helpless before the universe, as we can try to intervene with what life has given us–whether peonies or heartache or joy. Our interventions vary with many factors, and have rippling consequences far beyond our immediate awareness. The resulting interplay of forces–randomness, abundance, mankind’s varying interventions, godly serendipity–produces a kaleidoscope of outcomes that are dizzy to behold if viewed too closely. There is beauty in the shifting patterns, and that is enough.
That’s as good a theory as any!
It’s probably good to not take it personally.
Si