Hope

Dandelion

Sacred seed drifts forth

Lodging deep in stony heart

Life blooms recklessly 

Out near Osawatomie Kansas, we found an abandon bridge.  The old 1st Street bridge had been closed to traffic for years.  The old wood planks on the bridge floor were barely safe for foot travel.  I climbed down the embankment to the bank of the Marais des Cygnes River.  Underneath the bridge there was an interesting sight; a dandelion seed had found its way between two rocks in the foundation.  There, somehow, it found soil and water enough to live and bloom. 

Life emerges in unsuspecting places.  Perhaps it is reckless, or indiscriminate; but life emerges where we least expect it.  The little flower was a parable of hope.  Hope that between the rock and hard place, we can still grow.  Trials we will have with us always, the art of life is to grow where ever we are planted.  Jesus told a parable about a farmer who it seemingly indiscriminately sowed seed.  Some landed and was eaten by birds, some landed in the thorns and was choked out, some landed among the rocks and did not last, and some landed on good soil and grew and produced seed.  Perhaps this little dandelion reminded me, the good soil, is wherever life is permitted to flourish.  The seed, perhaps we can call it Hope, will bloom where ever the soil permits.  That seed can find a fissure in nearly any environment and there, if permitted, it will grow.