By Tammy Tkach
Anyone who has been to my home knows I love flowers. They are everywhere—in the backyard, in the front yard and in pots wherever I can find space. I love everything about them from planting them, watching them grow, and enjoying their fragrances and colors, to how they attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I wait all year for spring bulbs and I’m sad when they finish blooming. When a piece of a plant breaks off, instead of throwing it out I stick it in dirt and hope it grows. I talk to my roses.
I’ve always thought my love of flowers was genetic as my parents came from farming backgrounds. My dad was an avid gardener who also loved flowers. My mom’s yard is full of them and she loves them as much as me, or rather, as much as I do. I read a booklet by Baxter Kruger that changed my perspective on my passion for flowers, as well as my other hobbies and predilections. The booklet (available in e-book form on his website, www.perichoresis.org) is titled The Secret, not to be confused with the new age book of the same name.
Kruger tells the story of his encounter on a plane with a biologist. This man was enthusiastic about plants, so much so Kruger received an impromptu botany lesson. That prompted him to ask the biologist where he got his passion for plants. The man said he’d not really thought about it, so Kruger showed him a diagram depicting Father, Son and Holy Spirit and explained that his passion came from God’s passion. He didn’t say what the biologist thought, but I know what my reaction was: Aha!
That’s why I love flowers so much! That’s why artists paint, musicians play, singers sing, architects build, athletes play and compete, writers write and pilots fly. Our passion and creativity come from the passion and creativity of God, through the Son, in and through the Spirit. I was right, my love of flowers is genetic, but it’s DNA passed on to me through the shared life of Father, Son and Spirit.
So when the biologist who loves plants goes on a research trip or I plant yet another bulb or a poet writes a poem, we are expressing the image of God. Why is this important? It means, as many of us have suspected, our lives are not separate from God. As Paul said in Acts 17:28, “In him we live and move and have our being” (NIV). In Christ, all of life is shared life with the Trinity.
As I write, occasionally looking out the window at my flowers and fruit trees (and running out to chase the birds away), I am living “in the circle of the Triune life of God” (The Secret). All people, as we live out our passions or dream of living them, participate with God as he lives in us. He is Emmanuel. Our lives are in him. He is with us in everything we do. I think I’ll go plant something in celebration of God with us!