Ewe Bee U

 The Audacity of a Winter Rose

I haven’t known where to start.  What to say.  What does one say when you’ve allowed yourself to unravel?  When you’ve lost your self-discipline and routine and motivation?  When you’ve allowed darkness, doubt and anger to creep into the empty spaces?  How do you keep writing, keep working and keep kicking when you can’t even follow your own advice that you have peddled so freely to others?  Over a year has passed since my last entry, I have felt rudderless, with my sails luffing and yesterday found myself sinking – sinking into those same prairie grasses that waved so gloriously in the breeze exactly two years ago when I wrote of them and “their whispers of conversation” on April 11th, 2020.  But this time I was sitting amongst these swaying grasses sobbing uncontrollably, ashamed that I couldn’t muster the courage to receive the gifts of kindness, love and good nourishment that several friends and my husband had surprised me with after such a tough time.

But after my sinking, a profound change took place.  The grief and doubt that I had been taking on, that was swallowing me up and pulling me down finally flowed freely outward.  I bounced off the bottom and began to slowly float back up.

And in that moment of transition, in the calm after the storm late last night, as I was mundanely going through emails that I was behind on – this poem presented itself to me – printed in our church’s weekly e-newsletter that I rarely bother to open, much less even read.

Yet this time I read it, and then re-read it.  And I thought of that audacious winter rose and of the daffodil buds out in my own garden, pushing with all their might through that stubborn and unforgiving ground – their own sheer persistence and audacity.  And I woke up this morning and began to write.  This is my first audacious step.

Brazen Acts of Beauty

Lessons from a Winter Rose

I am dumbfounded

by the sheer persistence

of a winter rose

that blooms

on the coldest of days—

when the rest of the world

has turned dim and gray,

when the rest of the world is sleeping.

The audacity

to stand so tall,

to decorate the world with color,

to be the only one

brave enough

to bloom.

I wonder what that’s like.

Maybe it’s similar

to pouring perfume

on the feet of Jesus—

shocking and beautiful

at the same time.

On winter morning walks

I pass a bed of roses.

I dare not pick one.

Instead I say thank you.

Thank you for the beauty.

Thank you for the reminder.

Thank you for the bloom.

And I walk home and pray—

God, if you can,

make me that brave.

Adapted from a prayer

by Rev. Sarah Speed

sanctifiedart.org.

Be the Black Sheep. Be the Ugly Duckling. Seek Beauty. Think Deeply. Weep Freely. Guard the Sacred. Celebrate the Possibility. Celebrate the Individual.

- Ewe Bee U

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