Stone laid pathways in our garden meander by flower beds and trail through grassy places. Its purpose is to provide a walkway through the garden without disturbing the plantings. The trail is attractive within its own right when kept free of soil and weeds. On one stretch of the path there is a beautiful, healthy hyacinth pertly jutting out of the stones. It stands solitary.
I feel tempted, each time I walk by, to uproot it from its place, restoring the path to its proper appearance. I have not done that yet -there's something within me that says, "leave it there." Nearby, a whole bed of hyacinths and tulips blossom profusely, each one blooming where it was planted. The single hyacinth among the stones is as beautiful as any.
Beauty appears unexpectedly and in unlikely places in all of life. Most of our lives are planned and orchestrated, but, from time to time a blossom appears where it was not planted. A writer told of an incident wherein he was scheduled to review his latest book on the west coast. After his presentation was over and he was about to leave the auditorium, he felt a soft hand on his arm. He turned to look into the laughing eyes of a beautiful middle aged woman. Her dress bespoke of her wealth and social position. She spoke. The author listened as the woman revealed that she had been a student in an economically depressed area in New York where the writer's late wife had been a teacher. The two had been thrown together in the classroom. One day the teacher had assigned to the class a writing project. Each student was to single out a thing of beauty he or she had come upon between that moment and the next day's class and to write a description of that thing or event. Being conscientious, the young girl had anxiously clutched her writing tablet and searched for something beautiful to write about. Her neighborhood was squalid with streets strewn with litter. Rubbish overflowed from trash cans. Her tenement was grimy and run down with soiled and faded overstuffed furniture leaking its padding. There just was not any beauty in her world. That night she fell asleep with her tablet in her arms and tears of defeat drying on her cheeks.
The next morning as she left for school empty handed, she passed the bed on which her baby sister slept. Suddenly, a sunbeam flashed through a clean spot on the grimy window and fell on the tousled blond hair of the child lying there. To the young girl it appeared as beautiful strings of gold. She quickly sat down with her tablet and described her feelings from what she saw. That morning the students were asked to read their compositions in class. When the young girl had finished reading her paper her teacher asked her to remain after class. As they met, the teacher's face glowed with excitement. The paper had revealed a sensitive mind and an unusually adept writing style. It was poetry in prose form. She must cultivate her gift of expression. As the school year passed the two shared dreams and possibilities. First of all, she must find a way to finish school and go to college. She must never lose hold of her dream no matter how difficult times may be. The woman completed her story: "I finished high school at the head of my class and won a full scholarship to the university of my choice. I embarked on a writing career. Like you, I also am on a tour reviewing my latest book." It was then that she revealed her pen name. It was one of America's most celebrated authors. A maverick sunbeam caressing a little girl's blond locks had opened a doorway that led to a lifetime of pleasure and success. A hyacinth growing among the rocks.
Who would have imagined a hyacinth growing among the rocky paths of backwoods Kentucky where a lanky youth trudged to a blabber school to learn to read and write, the rude beginning of a journey which led to the White House. He was to become America's best loved president. Who would have imagined a hyacinth growing in a cotton field in the south where a slave woman struggled to bear her unborn child. A boy to be born who would one day unlock the secrets of the lowly peanut and revolutionize agriculture in the post-cotton south. A hyacinth blossomed in a blacksmith shop where an unlettered father taught his son his trade. The son, instead, would become the most eloquent preacher of the eighteenth century and become a foundation stone of an ivy league college.
It seems as if God is playing a game, to plant treasures in unexpected places and wait for someone to find them. Sadly, too many hyacinths bloom unseen in rocky places and waste away because no one took time to discover them. Too often we reject what is out of place, or is too different, or does not meet our criteria for acceptance. People, like flowers, blooming in unlikely places are often left to wilt with the music God composed in them left unplayed.
Maybe that's why I couldn't uproot my hyacinth. Its place in my garden was to be a lesson everyone needs to learn.
If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves
Alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
- 12th century Persian poet
by Rev. J. Vance Eastridge,April, 2000. http://eastridges.com/vance