A Garden for all People

Many people who create beautiful flower gardens like to look at them from their windows, or walk beside them down a narrow path concealed from onlookers. In the comfort of a private space, the smell of roses or jasmine can be drunk in slowly and deeply, and the beauty of color can be surveyed to the heart's content.

How touching it was then, to see as I walked by slowly, a garden of flowers that faced not toward the house of its creator from which it now could not be seen, but toward the street where passersby could view it and slow their cars slightly to enjoy it as they drove by. One might not think anything at all of such a gesture, except that someone who lived in the house behind the garden cared more about sharing it than 'having' it. More about bestowing it as a gift than owning it for themselves.

These tender gestures are everywhere if one looks for them. They are the unannounced sparks of generosity that touch the heart and must never be taken for granted. Someone, somewhere, cared for beauty and wanted to share it more than to possess it. That is a statement around which a life can be built, no less than a flower garden.