"What a lovely thing a rose is..."
"...Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it, It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."- Sherlock Holmes, The Naval Treaty
I began my 2014 reading list the same way I ended my 2013 reading list - enthralled by the quick wit and even quicker deductions of the most famous consulting detective in the world! I have always enjoyed the stories Sir Arthur Conan Doyle presented of Sherlock Holmes and his biographer and friend John Watson, but I admit I have not read all of them. So, taking up the challenge last year, I began to read. (I am one of those strange people who thinks reading is at least as cathartic as writing.) When I came to the tale of The Naval Treaty, I was not expecting the jewel of a statement I discovered tucked away in this short story.
"Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence..." I paused for a moment and continued. "Seems to me to rest in the flowers."
"Wow!," I thought. "How True!"
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." - Jesus, Matthew 6:28,29
The beauty and grace and fragrance and delicacy and strength and potency and simplicity and complexity of flowers really ought to amaze us as well as convince and assure us of the goodness of providence. Our greatest achievements are accomplished only by decades of diligent and persistent work. A rose buds and flowers in a few short days and in that time gives us all we could hope for or imagine for beauty and all we could delight in for fragrance. It challenges our senses and arouses our curiosities. It pleases us in so many ways. And all these things, as Holmes says, are "extra."
We don't need roses to live. They are not invaluable to our survival. We can (and most probably do) get along just fine day in and day out without ever considering a rose. But when we do consider it, we understand that the embellishment of a flower can transform a day, any day. That "Extra" can lift our hearts and spirits. And it is only goodness which gives extras.
I Agree with Holmes. We have much to hope from the flowers.