proclivities

pink&purple, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Picture: Close-up of a small purple flower with pink stamens.

Recently we watched the movie "Amazing Grace" (which I highly recommend to each of you). The main character, Wilberforce, realizes that he could easily spend his life enjoying nature--studying spiderwebs and gazing into flowers. He find so much satisfaction in his communion with the natural world. Yet he comes to realize that this isn't his mission in life. Instead, he becomes a politician and is instrumental in ending the British slave trade.

Some days I feel like I lose myself in a flower. Time flies by while I'm in my garden and I start to only care about growing things. The rest of life seems so mundane in comparison. Yet I also have this feeling that I am supposed to do so much more. That gardening is important, even bedrock, for my life. But it's not the whole of it. There are books to write, and children to raise, and friends to meet. And the flowers will continue to grow. Whether I am wholly absorbed in them or not.