This blog does not usually lend itself to photographs. But I wanted to share two of them with you. Jesus referred to the “lilies of the field,” which were wildflowers that lived in the brief rainy Mediterranean springtime, then died before the long dry summer. Their lives are so short, and yet they are invested with such exquisite beauty: “Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.” As even one of them. The world is not God’s efficient machine, but is the evolutionary playhouse in which organisms prosper, and produce flashes of beauty, during brief opportunities.
The first photograph is Linanthus montanus, a type of phlox that grows in the Sierra Nevada. It is only a few inches high, with tiny leaves and a spindly stem. They live on granite outcrops. They bloom in June; by July, their seeds have fallen and hardly a trace of them remains. Even at their prime they look like a pink mist over the granite rocks and gravel.
The second photograph is a flower of the genus Clarkia, a type of evening primrose that hides among the grasses of the southern Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range of California. They are even more spindly than the grasses that surround them, and after June hardly a trace of them remains. I apologize that Blogger insists on turning this photo on its side no matter what I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment