Songs of a Bruised Camellia

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, I’m not the flower everyone thinks I am.
I am not the flower.
I am not her.
Not that one.
I am another one.
Whether I’d like to admit it or not, my fragrance is not the one most preferred.
I’m not that fragrance.
I’m not her.
I am another one.

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, my petals are not those pristine orbed pillows
Prompted out of hiding by the dappled shade of spring.
I am not a gardenia. I am a camellia. People often mix us up. Gardenia spreads her blooms from spring to summer, but I am different. My blooms appear among the first bloomers of Spring and then they quickly fall to the ground and bruise under everything and anything close and prevalent. Especially air. It’s true I live in a region where once a year an entire festival is held in my honor. It is a ghastly affair (if you are a flower) during which an enormous spectrum of all varieties of my kind are placed in exotic vases or mounted on creatively altered apparatus so as to reveal their most stunning profiles. The flowers are hideously ranked according to the tastes and expectations of fickle viewers.

This shouldn’t surprise me as it happens to everything in the created order. Gardeners are not immune to falling into the same traps the whole of society forces upon them. What makes it particularly difficult is my inability to change myself into that other flower. Even if I could, I imagine the confusion would be repeated by those who were unable to identify me in my original state. I have succumbed to the pressure before. Deciding to proclaim myself a this or a that, rather than saving my efforts to be fully who I am based on the genealogy given to me by my Maker. It was a disaster.

I am the flower God designed me to be.
I am His Flower.
I am His Her.
I am His one.
I am the fragrance God breathed into me.
My breath is from God.
I am His.

I bruise easily. I am short-lived. The very air around me presses in and leaves a mark. I was not designed for competitions but rather to be loved and to bring beauty into the world. Not for beauty’s sake alone, but for the sake of turning people on their heels, for bringing them up short and making them stop and ask how is it that such a dainty thing could come randomly into existence? Given my short blooming season, I understand how my value could be overlooked, but even when my blooms are dormant, my glossy leaves make magnificent nets for the sunshine and extraordinary mirrors for God the Master Gardener. Nothing was spared in my creation to reveal a tiny, teeny facet of the abundance of God’s astonishing resources that were lovingly expended for me.

Whether I’d like to admit it or not, I’m not the flower everyone thinks I am.
I am not the flower.
I am not her.
Not that one.
I am another one.