Flowers are Red and Green Leaves are Green

I left a comment to someone’s blog the other day, danged if I could remember which blog it was now. I’d made reference to an old Harry Chapin song, one where he took a shot at teachers who destroy the creative and imaginative minds in our children.

It seems that a young boy began coloring a picture on his first day of school and found that his teacher had very limited ideas on how he should present his expression of thought. The young man was put in a corner and had to repeat, “Flowers are red, and green leaves are green, there’s no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen.” Fortunately the boy eventually moved to another town where his new teacher was overflowing with freedom of expression and encouraged the boy, “There are so many colors in the rainbow, so many colors in the morning sun, so many colors in the flowers, so let’s use everyone.”

Now, as for my photograph; it’s a Hibiscus bud from my backyard on a gray and slightly drizzly day. I was impressed by the intensity of the leaves, the newly formed young unfurling ones being a reminder that winter will soon give way to spring, the fully developed deep green leaves with a few droplets of rain in contrast with the energy hidden within the fresh Hibiscus bud are one of the wallpaper photos that I have on my computer monitor now and again.

Easter is around the corner, a chance to reflect on more spiritual things. Much like the Hibiscus in my back yard, there is a rebirth awaiting each of us, a promise from our Savior; our mortality to put on immortality. May the waters from Heaven land upon our leaves and wash away our imperfections and permit our lives to burst forth in equally splendid fashion.