I once watched a little girl, maybe five years old, gather a handful of dandelions and bring them proudly to her mother as a gift. Like every little child, she believed this offering of love was a true treasure. Her mother rolled her eyes at the rest of us adults standing there, and as the child walked back to the playground, she dropped them disdainfully to the ground.
This was so many years ago. I don’t know why I think of it every time I see a dandelion. I think my heart hurts on behalf of the child, now an adult and mother herself. I just cannot understand the coldness, and the way the flowers dropped from her hands, like, “What the heck am I going to do with these?!” There was no gratitude or realization that the child simply wanted to show her love. She received them as a burden.
Yes, dandelions are not meant for little glass vases. Yes, they shrink and brown within an hour of being plucked from the earth. Yes, they are still called weeds and poisoned by many people who prefer coiffed, green grass. But it wasn’t the flowers that were rejected. It was actually the child’s love.
A child is born with a desire and a heart to love. They love us with hands covered in mud and kisses that leave behind yogurt or spaghetti sauce or any number of things we’d rather not know. A child sees something beautiful, a golden flower, free for the taking. She does not know the flower is called a weed. She can’t imagine that it is unwanted. She sees its colour and that it is reaching to the sun, so she plucks it, and then, amazingly, she gives it away. She wants to make an offering to the person she loves best.
That little flower is a golden treasure to the child. I would say that it is a golden treasure in reality. The child is seeing something that most of us have forgotten to see: a sign of God, a sign of beauty, wonder, design, simplicity, and extravagance.
Of course the symbolism is obvious. The child who loves her mother and offers the treasure is God. We are the mother being loved. But the flower God offers us is himself. He offers us a share in himself, in the life of virtue. Certainly he is scorned, unwanted by many, but it does not change the reality of what is offered. God holds out to us truth, goodness, and beauty, the treasures of great worth, and at the same time we are given the freedom to receive or scorn them and let them fall to the ground.
Not all gifts are convenient, or asked for. When God offers himself to us, his very blood and eternal life, we might be tempted to consider the burden that comes with accepting. We look at God’s gift and wonder what will be asked of us. Do we really need this gift, or want it? Truth comes with an obligation. Beauty and goodness require a response.
Every human, created in God’s image, has a need for truth, goodness, and beauty. That means that we have a need for him who is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. It is imprinted on our souls. We might go for long periods of time and get used to living without them, just as we could get used to living without healthy food because it is easier, cheaper, and faster to eat poorly. We are shrinking inside, but we’re used to it. A life without the transcendentals may continue on a day to day basis but our souls will inevitably shrink, becoming barren and dry.
The little girl’s flowers were so very simple. The mother concerned herself with their future browning, or their inconvenience, or who knows what. But all that was required of her was to receive them and hold them. God offers us truth in every word of scripture, in doctrine, and in faith. It can be rich and complex. But truth can also be as simple as an image of Christ on the cross.
Goodness can be as complicated as giving your entire life to serving the poor, or it can be as ordinary as hugging a crying child, or phoning a lonely friend. Beauty may be expressed in fine art or the chants of the Church, but it can also be found in a silent moment or a dandelion growing between the cracks of the sidewalk. Complex or simple, these moments make us more and more like the One who gave them.
They will open our souls to joy, and the only response required is to receive them and hold them close.
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