The Pretty Things

I wondered yesterday what gives a flower its smell. How can a rose smell so darn good? It really amazes me, and I wonder why it does, that nature can create something so beautiful. But then I remember Who is behind it all, Who designed it...Who made it work so perfectly well.

"Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree."

I'm thankful to live in such a beautiful area. I play in the backyard with Alina often. We hide beneath the apple trees and have conversations with rabbits. We run away from ogres and our Cinderella wonders, as she strolls across the deck or "stage", why her Prince Charming doesn't remember her anymore. The Egyptian princess and I gather fallen rose petals and throw them, at just the right moment, into the wind and we watch them dance away. Sometimes they are confetti, sometimes they are magical charms, other times the petals serve as a deadly poison. With Alina, anything can be everything. She has such a marvelous imagination and she is such a great actress for only being 3 years old...almost 4.

It is good to imagine a world outside of ones own. This world has too much trouble, too much worries that choke away the beauty. I think it would be beneficial to everyone if they each escaped, if only for a little bit, each day into the beauty that lies somewhere in their imagination. I wonder if people remember that they have an imagination. I wonder if they wonder about how flowers can smell so wonderful...or about the mysterious relationship between a tree and the sun. There is so much life around us, I wonder if we notice it? Do we even care to? In my eyes, it so necessary, at least for me, to put aside life for a moment...to just stop and look and really listen. I was lying in the grass a few days ago and Alina asked what I was doing. I said, "I'm talking with the sun." And she asked, "What is he saying?" And I told her that the sun thought it was a perfect day for people to enjoy life. And we lay in the grass together, the two of us, for a few moments before she asked me to play princess with her again. I think deep down, she's not only a princess, but a bohemian. Perhaps that is why we get along so well. She understands me, understands imagining...and the lengths I go to imagine, she dares me to imagine more. That little Egyptian princess is good for me.

For all of the man-made wonders that have been created, I can honestly and truly say that nothing is more beautiful than the way God designed a rose to smell so sweet.