Unfolding

One of my favorite flowers is the rose. Go figure! As a child, I used to really, I mean really, dislike my name. Why would my parents name their oldest child after a flower of all things? I was teased relentlessly at times, called every other flower but my name, Rose. People expected me to answer to Daisy, Petunia or Lily. All nice flowers, but it wasn’t MY name. When I was in college and working in foodservice, nearly every time I had to go into the dish room, the guys working in there started singing one of the many songs that had Rose in the title! Did I mention I used to dislike my name?

It wasn’t until I was in seminary at the age of 35 that I came to understand and appreciate the significance of my name as an integral part of who I was/am. All those years ago, I wrote this untitled poem about how I began to see my life as my namesake.

Untitled
by Rose Blank

“I have finally seen my life as my namesake—a rose.
It has never occurred to me before
That how much like a bud I have been.
But then, oh then, I was
Pulled from the safety of my closed-ness
My comfortable security.

The Spirit of God gently urged and nudged
Pulling away at my outer petals
Giving my inner self a breath of fresh air.
That newness was invigorating, encouraging
But at the same time painful.
I feel exposed, vulnerable, it’s risky.

But only when a rose is fully
Exposed to the sunlight and warmth of God’s care
Can it be completely appreciated for
Its beauty!”

During a recent photography workshop with Angie Pierce Jennings, we were invited to take meditative walks and pay attention to what spoke to us. She suggested that as we reviewed our photos, we might recognize some might have an autobiographical significance, which was so true for me. Several of my walks were in my own backyard. The previous owners of our house left us an abundance of wild roses that add beauty and fragrance to our space. I was taken by these roses in their various stages of unfolding and blooming and began once again to think of my namesake and my life that has continued to unfold through the work of God’s presence and grace.

In “Roses,” one of Mary Oliver’s poems, she ponders some of life’s big questions and she speaks to the roses:

Roses
by Mary Oliver

“Wild roses,” I said to them one morning,
“Do you have the answers? And if you do,
would you tell me?”

The roses laughed softly. “Forgive us,”
they said. “But as you can see, we are
just now entirely busy being roses.”

Roses are, as Mary Oliver writes, “entirely busy being roses.” Perhaps this is an invitation to think of our own life as roses—that we are invited to be entirely busy being who God calls us to be. As I continued to reflect on this picture, it seems the roses might have something to teach us.

Unfolding
by Rose Blank

The wild roses before me are busy being roses,
as a poet once proclaimed.
They are busy stretching to the sunshine’s warmth,
tiny buds awaiting …
Are they like me?
Uncertain of what lies ahead in times such as these?

Or are they simply busy trusting in the process,
the eternal unfolding that is woven into the fabric of their being?
Simply be.
Embody grace.
Give joy and beauty in the face of pain and hurt that surrounds,
and yes, that which even resides within.

The full bloom beckons me to unfold
into the fullness of who God creates me to become,
to unfold into the love that wells up within
and overflows into the world around me.

The unfolding continues,
this busy being a rose
even as the blooms fade away
there is beauty in what remains—
the emerging perfect star shape.

All of life becomes an unfolding
as celebration of the ongoing cycle
of life lived fully.

—Rose Blank, Prairiewoods volunteer