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Tag: roses

  • At what cost a hobby?

    At what cost a hobby?

    A Jewish Proverb says ” When a habit begins to cost money it is called a hobby. ” I have quite a few hobbies it would seem. if that is the measure.    Growing roses is one of those.

    I came home from holidays this week to an abundance of blooms in the garden. Thanks to recent rains and previously added rose fertiliser, the bushes are covered in flowers. I have been quick to lop off the buds and blossoms and to stuff them into vases so I can enjoy both the perfume and their display of beauty inside. It gives me pleasure to give a bunch of my roses away. I also feel compelled to photograph them. I am almost embarrassed at the number of rose photos I have posted on social media over the past ten years.

    I planted my rose bushes especially to cut their flowers. Buying flowers seems a luxury and yet buying a bush, fertiliser and sprays does not feel quite the same. I enjoy pottering in my garden; although I would not go so far to say I have a “green thumb”.  My rose bushes would not win a gardening award. But then, that is not the reason I grow roses.

    I have never done the math to work out what a dozen of my roses cost; and I am reluctant to do so. Evidence says hobbies are good for the soul. Growing roses is good for my soul as fishing is for my husband. 

    We often joke that if we did the math on my husband’s fishing hobby the price per kilo of fish fillets might be closer to hundreds of dollars. Buying reef fish fillets seems a luxury and yet eating the bounty of a day’s ‘hunting and gathering’ does not feel quite the same. How do you put a value on leisure; on fresh air, sunshine and physical activity along with the joy of being on the water?

    What are your hobbies?  Do you think hobbies a luxury or a necessity? I do not think you can truly evaluate the cost of a hobby.  Hobbies are good for the soul. That is priceless!
     

  • A matter of perspective

    A matter of perspective

    At a recent meeting, I spent over half an hour listing off my qualifications, my roles and my interests to provide my background story. The person I was meeting with then asked me a question that required an answer from a different perspective.  On a full page of preparatory notes filled with dot points, I had recorded only three lines that helped me answer this question.  The question he asked was something like “What has God been doing in your life?”  At first, I was overcome with emotion and felt quite vulnerable to share that which was deeply personal. It was not something I usually talked about when discussing my business and career goals, even though we were both Christians. It got me thinking though…    

    Is there more than one way to frame my life’s journey and tell my story? What if my particular way of recalling my life needs to change or at least be broadened? Perhaps it’s time I focused on a different perspective.

    A number of themes have started to emerge as I have been looking back and telling my story. I have been convicted that perhaps I have been focusing a little too much on as single perspective .  What would my story be if I asked different questions of myself and my life? 

    Abe Lincoln is attributed with having said “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”  Have I, I wondered, been looking at the thorns and missing the beauty of the roses in my life?  Instead of asking “Why did this awful thing happen to me?”, what would my story be if I asked myself “How is this the best thing that happened to me?”  Instead of looking at the trials in my life, what would it look like if I looked for God’s providence instead?  Instead of looking at achievements of the ‘head’, what if I looked for achievements of the ‘heart’? 

    I started a journey today going back through some of the scripts I have recorded about my life and have been asking myself different questions.  I still have a way to go and am getting a little excited. As I look past some of the thorns I am beginning to notice some of the roses. 

    This reminds me of an old Indian story I once heard about six blind men who approach an elephant for the first time. These men describe the whole beast deduced from the portion they could feel.  Of course, when one is feeling the trunk, another the tail, another the leg, an ear, the belly and the tusk it is any wonder they could not agree on what an elephant looked like.  The problem is that each one only had a partial view and were describing the whole from their single perspective. 

    I draw comfort from the fact that God can see the whole clearly. I may never know everything that He is doing in my life.  I do know though that He loves me and that in all things He works for good because I love Him. (Romans 8:28)  The Bible talks a lot about being thankful and having gratitude.  I confess that when my perspective is small and certainly in the midst of pain that can be hard to do.  I do not want to grow old recalling only the thorns and missing the roses.  I am committed to recalling and perhaps retelling my story from a different perspective. 

    “It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.”  Henry David Thoreau.

    Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash