I have known about Maple bloosoms for years, and photograph them every year, but a walk through the early spring woods at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge headquarters (I know, May is not normally “early” spring in Maine, but this year it definitely is) turned up the subtle flowers of several other trees. I am actually not sure what the trees are, as they have no leaves yet, and I am far from any kind of expert in trees. The one field guide I have does not even have pictures of most tree’s flowers.

Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. Macro mode (Superior Auto) adjusted for depth of field. 50mm plus 2x Perfect Picture Zoom. ISO 200 @ 1/200th @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.

And for the Sunday Thought: when you stop to think of it, it is obvious that, indeed, all trees must flower. There must be flowers to produce pollen, to invite pollination, and produce fruit, and fruit to produce seed…even if we do not recognize or notice them as such. For most trees, I suspect, the flowering is brief, and the flowers small, so they go unnoticed…uncelebrated. If I had not had my macro mode on (in my mind, not in the camera), I would not have been looking closely enough at the emerging leaves to see the delicate, and beautiful flower hidden shyly within. And look what I (and by extension, you) would have missed.

The trees, of course, follow a yearly cycle. Now that I have seen the flower of this tree, I will look for it, and enjoy it, and celebrate it, again next year.

With humans, though, the flowers are spiritual, and follow no season. They can and do happen any day, any month, any moment. I suspect I am not looking closely enough…that I do not have my spiritual macro mode on often enough…to see and celebrate the spiritual flowerings of many of my fellows. Brief and beautiful, shy and subtle, the moments of when the creative spirit invites pollination and prepares the fruit in a life.

And I have a feeling that spiritual pollination is just that: notice, appreciation, celebration…that the fruit in a life depends on our awareness…our openness to each other’s flowering moments. It depends on our ability to flower in praise and appreciation of another’s flowers of creation.

Maybe I am stretching the metaphor too far…but I don’t think so. I think it is apt. Flower speaks to flower in the pollen of praise. And so comes the fruit. Happy Sunday! And may all your flowers today be pollinated with praise.