Picture a prairie.
The wild and wily plants grow.
A gentle wind blows.
A crow caws from one of the trees.
Now imagine a person walking in that prairie.
Swinging a net wildly, trying to capture something beautiful.
I’ve tried to catch butterflies with a net before. Maybe you have too.
But have you ever noticed how the wild swinging to try and capture what we want can wreak a kind of havoc?
We see something we want, something we need to have, and so we go after it.
But it is not with intention and warm-heartedness.
It is not with a joyous sense of meeting the Other.
It is with violence. Or fear.
It is easy to live with clenched fists.
To do our damndest to capture the beautiful.
To hold it in place forever and ever, and say, Mine, all mine.
But what gets scared off by living like that?
What remains just out of reach?
What gets crushed or destroyed?
The wildflower in the prairie lives differently.
The wildflower plants itself in the ground.
It establishes deep roots.
All the better to be nourished.
It lifts its head.
All the better to drink the rain.
The wildflower spends its time making sweet things.
All the better to tempt the beautiful and the winged.
Hey.
Here’s a great place for you to arrive and perch lightly for a while.
And then the wildflower watches the beautiful fly away.
And what does it do?
It keeps on making the sweet and the beautiful.
A standing invitation of goodness and delight.
For whatever comes next.
As you walk through life, consider putting down the net.
Forgetting the fear, the clenched fist.
Consider being the wilding flower. Grounded, open, and tempting the beautiful into your life.
Live light, y’all.