Sensing Lent 33: Consider the lilies

Consider the lilies (or in this case, roses, tulips and orchids) - they 'neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these' Luke: 27). 

It's the ultimate 'do not worry' text from the New Testament and you can see why. When you're transfixed by the kind of beauty we saw today, growing naturally in the earth (or greenhouse) it's difficult to understand how it is we get hung up on so many things we think we can control. 

One thing about gazing on something naturally beautiful is that it keeps you in the present moment. It's very difficult to worry about anything when you're in the present, because worrying is about the past (things that you wish you could change, and can't) and the future (things you're afraid of but which might never happen).

'There can be no doubt that the power to remember and predict, to make an ordered sequence out of a helter skelter chaos of disconnected moments, is a wonderful achievement of sensitivity (...) but the way in which we generally use this power is apt to destroy all its advantages. For it is of little use to us to be able to be able to remember and predict if it makes us unable to live fully in the present' (The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan W. Watts, 1951).

Consider the...roses, tulips, orchids...lilies... do not worry, look around, give thanks, stay in the present.