Friday, May 29, 2009

On Appreciation

"How can anyone look at all the flowers out here and not believe in God?" This was a question posed to me today at work by a customer (I work at a big retail greenhouse). I don't think she expected an answer, thankfully, because I definitely didn't have one for her. Now, I don't mean to paint a picture of an ignorant or gullible person. It just piqued my interest to hear it. The woman didn't seem particularly evangelical, or critical of anyone who might disagree. She may have even blushed slightly after realizing she said it in public. It was like she saw something meaningful and simply commented on it.

I probably don't share this woman's religious views. If anything, when I look at a sea of flowers I'm more likely to imagine the biological makeup that allows so much complexity to come in to existence from dirt and water; or.....hell, molecules, atoms, effing neutrons! While we might be on opposite ends of the spectrum about creation, it doesn't matter. It's all appreciation.

There was another customer I had last week, she was looking at buying a peony. For the non-gardener/greenhouse worker, this is what a peony looks like.

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They grow big, get kinda bushy and have large flowers ranging from red to pink to white. This woman had a garden layout all planned up for her, sketches and all, and in one spot she needed some type of peony. It didn't really matter which one. Of the 10 or so varieties out there, the choice was entirely hers. She spent over 45 minutes agonizing. There had to be one perfect plant to choose, THE SOLUTION, and having that kind of responsibility was causing her just so much grief. I wanted to scream at her, "For god's sake just pick one! You can make your OWN freaking decision!" In the end, I think she elected to put it off until she could contact her garden designer. Hypocrite that I am, I know I've done the same thing in a similar situation. But really, is anything actually that important? I'm not so sure.

If you're still waiting for the point to this, well then one of us has clearly failed. I'm gonna say it's god.

1 comments:

Jason said...

effing neutrons!