Supporting others to bloom brightly
Another beautifully crafted reflection by Fr Jason Murphy in his bi-monthly column, Let the Busy World Be Hushed...
The sweet pea is an essential of any cottage garden throughout the land and is the darling of all gardeners for the colour and the scent it exudes in the long balmy days of summer - shades of purple and pink, white and mauve, lilac and everything in between. Even in these early days of Autumn as we approach mid September, the Sweet Pea keeps giving and giving in colour and perfume as we dander along the borders in the duskish of the evening and catch its enchanting perfume.
It was a favourite of my grandmother and many of her generation as she grew it along hedges giving the green of the box the appearance of having donned a summer frock of brightly coloured patterns to attract the passing eye. And, though it seems perfectly at home in a garden along any street or laneway throughout this land, it originated in the sunny climes of the Mediterranean, on the island of Sicily from where its seeds were brought to Britain and Ireland and planted in the greenhouses and herbaceous borders of the well to do.
But soon it became a favourite of the ordinary folk as its seeds were planted near the doorway where it grew to thwart the fragrance of the dunghill from wafting in over the half door.
For such a generous plant both in flower and aroma its beginnings are most unremarkable as a shrivelled up pea, not at all attractive to the eye, giving way to a little sapling when it is watered in a seed tray, on the cold days of February, seated on a south facing window ledge, yearning the warmth of the early sun. Its delicate little stem and fragile leaves hardly look like they will survive at all. Indeed it needs the support of a twig to lean on and, all through the Spring, it needs the strength of another as it grows unbeknownst to you until the May frosts give way to warm summer days and the time comes for it grow in open ground as it flounders and falls out of the security of its little pot.
Even then it needs a shoulder to lean on to allow it to grow upwards to the sun but, with the aid of a few canes and soft garden twine, come the warm summer days, it grows with vigour, taller and taller until it is the tallest of all in the garden, giving and giving, over and over a perfusion of flower and scent to delight the passing senses.
As we return to the school yard and our places of work after the long days of summer, days when we basked in the sun whether at home or on holiday, we meet again with faces that we often take for granted, the faces of our ordinary and our everyday, some of whom we crowd around and others we casually pass by. It can be the case that we are drawn to the strongest and the fittest and those who boast of their prowess. We want to be associated with the most popular, the most successful, those who don the most expensive and those who make others laugh out the loudest.
The weaker and the more fragile, be it in body or in soul, tend to dwell on the periphery of our vision, those who appear who have frail stems and more delicate leaves, those who need others to lean on, can sometimes not be at the centre of the crowd.
But remember always the sweet pea, the darling of all garden. For those who appear to be fragile in their beginnings, who flounder and fall on open ground, can often with the support of others be the ones who will grow in perfusion, the tallest of them all. They will in time give the brightest colour to your garden and their perfume will arouse the senses as you dander on summer evenings.
Think only of your childhood and those who played with you your childish games, think of the strong and the most able, those who boasted the loudest of their prowess, around whom the children crowded to be picked on sports team in the yard at school and think then of the gentlest and the kindest, those who spoke in softer tones, those who sought not the attention of others but joined shyly into others games.
Who would you rather meet now, these years later on the street of Cavan; the self – effacing and the humble, those who wish only to hear of you, not to boast of their own prowess and achievements but to hear of how life has life has been all these years for you. They may be ones who started out the most gentle but whose colour and perfume was only made manifest with the passing of the years. They are those whose beauty is long lasting and whose aroma will draw you onwards come the evening and in the duskish of the day.
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