Month: March 2014

Morning Glories

Photo source: Erika Weissenfluh, yourshot.nationalgepgraphic.com

Today what makes me happy are morning glories.

Morning glories are small flowers, not big joys but small ones. They are not showy flowers, but modestly beautiful. They come in purple, blue, pink, and white varieties.

Morning glories are somewhat like sunflowers. Sunflowers face the sun all day long; morning glories open in the morning and close at night. This gives them their name.

As a little girl in Romania, I often noticed morning glories winding up the iron gate of peoples’ homes. They brought a little color to the shade of a big city like the one I lived in. Sometimes I got too close when I was smelling them, and stuck my nose in. The pollen tickled me, but I ignored it. If you stuck your nose in one of these flowers and then breathed in hard, the petals would close in around your nose because of the suction of air. This always delighted me, thought I would sneeze a couple of times afterward.

Here is a short piece I wrote today in ode to morning glories. I hope you enjoy it.

There by the end of the path was a bed of morning glories. I stooped to examine them, suddenly lost in their tiny world. Their purple petals were soft and veiny, full of delicate life. Purple faded to white in their centers, their core lit by the sun, radiant as if with a glow all their own; pure and fine, frail and feminine. These flowers made me feel powerful, but for their sake I merely stroked the edges of their petals, refraining from plucking any. Such precious life should not be destroyed. So I stood from the silent bed of morning glories and plodded my weary way down the path. Yet inside me I carried hope, hope that things as frail as they and I may survive on the glow of a core lit by the sun.

Till We Have Faces

I recently read Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, C.S. Lewis’ last novel. It retells the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, and is told through the eyes of Psyche’s sister Orual. The novel is written as a complaint against the gods by Orual.

Psyche is taken away from Orual to become the wife of a god. Her new life pleases her. Psyche is content, and believes that her life would have been wasted had she not been taken away. But Orual cannot see the good in it. She is angry and hurt, and feels betrayed. She convinces Psyche to disobey her husband, which Psyche does only to appease her sister. But Psyche is caught, and banished to walk the world, weeping, forever.

Orual is bitter and hates the gods for taking away her beloved sister and for punishing her as well. But Orual is blind to the pain she caused her sister and herself. She does not stop to consider how it might have been better for Psyche to remain with the god than to live an unfulfilling life.

As I read Part 1 I was on Orual’s side. It wasn’t fair for the gods take away the only person she really loved. But I kept reading.

At the end of the novel, Orual stands before a court (of ghosts) and asks, “Why?” Why did this happen to her?

She is shown images, moving images of the hardships Psyche has endured for years and years, ever since she was banished to roam. They are difficult, very difficult, yet somehow she looks cheerful. But always there is a shadow along beside her, and that shadow is Orual.

” ‘Grandfather, she was all but unscathed. She was almost happy.’
‘Another bore nearly all the anguish.’
‘I? Is it possible?’ ” (Chapter 4 of Part 2 of my free bestlibrary.com version online.)

And it’s true. While Psyche was the one banished, Orual was the one who suffered by hating herself and beating herself up over it, as it were. And finally, in the very end, Psyche returns and Orual realizes how selfish she had been, and how wrong she was, and how much (truthfully) she had been spared. And how much pain she took from Psyche’s shoulders onto her own.

” ‘Oh Psyche, oh goddess,’ I said. ‘Never again will I call you mine; but all there is of me shall be yours.’ ”

This is the point of the entire book. Orual was mired in selfish love, in wanting only what was best for herself and never caring about what was best for Psyche. And the end is beautiful; Orual no longer runs from her past mistakes but unearths them all, and despite fearing pain at the exposure of her sins, finds joy and peace at last through forgiveness.

I highly recommended this novel (if I haven’t spoiled it for you by telling it all). It is beautiful and eye opening, the kind of novel that makes you look at everything in a new way.

Which other books have you read that make you question your assumtions, or changed your view on something? Comment below.

Martisor: Spring at Last!

The weather is beginning to warm up. Birds are singing after a three-month intercession. And– is that a flower?

Yes, we love spring. It symbolizes renewal and rejuvenation; and honestly, who doesn’t like the sight of fresh grass after months of snow?

In fact, in Romania, where I grew up, people love spring so much that they have a yearly celebration of it. It’s called Martisor (mar-tsi-SHOR), and it takes place on March 1st– today!

For Martisor, people of all ages exchange little charms with each other. They are sold in the flower vendors’ stalls lining every street.

The charms are small figurines– flowers, animals, dolls, anything you can think of. They’re tied to a safety pin with red and white thread. The red thread symbolizes Christ’s blood that He shed for us, and the white thread symbolizes His purity.

The martisor are pinned to the recipient’s shirt, right over the heart, and are meant to be worn all day. They are lucky, and are said to bring fortune to people throughout the following year.

My own collection of martisor has dwindled considerably since we moved to America. I used to have a handful of them; it was easy to accumulate a lot of them at school, because children gave them out as profusely as American children give out valentines on Valentine’s Day. But now I have only three: a rubber turtle, a tiny mat woven of reeds that includes a picture of flowers in a vase, and a glass dove with red wings and a yellow head.

My martisors remind me of Romania, but they also remind me of renewal. This holiday brings cheer into the beginning of a new spring.

What reminds you of spring? Let me know in the comments.