rooted & reaching.

i am a sunflower: rooted & reaching.

have you ever watched a sunflower reach its full potential? watched its seed break through the ground with its green fist opening only for the sun? observe as it studies its namesake, following it from east to west each day as it grows? and then finally felt its yellow lean over you, standing tall and firm in its full glory?

a sunflower can be massive and bright, reaching toward the sun and bringing joy and delight that feels bigger than life. and all the while it's grounded. rooted. deeply clinging to the earth, to its foundation.

i wonder how its stem feels in the tension of the in-between. how much work does it have to do to reach passionately both ways? or does it just come naturally? is this kind of stretching the only way it knows how to truly survive?

we are created too magnificently to only play it small. life naturally calls us to posture ourselves towards beauty and growth and light and love. and not in small ways alone; we are called to reach and stretch and live fully into our amazing potential.

and every step of this journey towards fully being our magnificent selves requires us to cling to our foundation. to remember that we are not great on our own. to know we are created too modestly to only play it big. a tiny seed, a tiny embryo. just as we are called to be great, we are also called to posture ourselves toward great humility, gratitude, groundedness. to point to our Creator in all things.

we are rooted. we are reaching. we are resting in the tension between being lifted and grounded, making neither greatness nor lowliness our goal. we are simply sunflowers, practicing life the only way we can truly survive.

may we all be beautiful sunflowers. rooted & reaching.

Sunflowers
Originally uploaded by cris.e