Planting Flowers

little flower arrangement Anna made for my desk earlier this summer 

Doug McKelvey wrote Every Moment Holy, a wonderful book of liturgies. In his liturgy for the planting of flowers he wrote:

In a world shadowed by cruelty, violence, and loss, is there good reason for the planting of flowers?

Ah, yes! For these bursts of color and beautiful blooms are bright dabs of grace, witnesses to a promise, reminders of a spreading beauty more eternal, and therefore stronger, than any evil, than any grief, than any injustice or violence.

What is the source of their beauty? From whence does it spring?

The forms of these flowers are the intentional designs of a Creator who has not abandoned his broken and rebellious creation, but has instead wholly given himself to the work of redeeming it. He has scattered the evidences of creation’s former glories across the entire scape of heaven and earth, and these evidences are also foretastes of the coming redemption of all things, that those who live in this hard time between glories might see and remember, might see and take heart, might see and take delight in the extravagant beauty of bud and bloom, knowing that these living witnesses are rumors and reminders of a joy that will soon swallow all sorrow.

In the planting of these flowers, do we join the Creator in his work of heralding this impending joy?

Yes. In this and in all labors of beauty and harmony, praise and conciliation, we become God’s co-workers and faithful citizens of his kingdom, by acts both small and great, bearing witness to the perfect beauty that was, to the ragged splendor that yet is, and to the hope of the greater glory that is to come, which is the immeasurable glory of God revealed to us, in the redeemed natures of all things.

What then is the eternal weight of these flowers?

Though our eyes yet strain to see it so, these tiny seeds, bulbs, or velvet buds we have planted are more substantial than all the collected evils of this groaning world. Their color and beauty speak a truer word than all greed and cruelty and suffering and harm.

What is the truer word spoken by these flowers?

They are like a banner planted on a hilltop, proclaiming God’s right ownership of these lands long unjustly claimed by tyrants and usurpers. They are a warrant and a witness, each blossom shouting from the earth that death is a lie, that beauty and immortality are what we were made for. They are heralds of a restoration that will forever mend all sorrow and comfort all grief. They declare a kingdom of peace, of righteousness, of joy, of love, and of the great joining of justice and mercy into a splendored perfection in the person of a king whose wonders eternally upwell, beautiful beyond the grasp of human imagination.

—Doug McKelvey, “A Liturgy for the Planting of Flowers”