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2007

9th July
Smells

2nd July
Smile

26th June
Waterlogged

11th June
Plans

6th June
Letters

21st May
Friends

May 9th
Stereotypes

May 1st
Broken

Broken

April 16th
Climbing hills

April 9th
The Three Trees

April 2nd
Small but deadly

March 28th
Toby the SuperDog

March 19th
Mountains

March 4th
Lone Daffodil

February 26th
Working hours

February 19th
Memory

February 12th
Piercings

February 5th
Patience

January 29th
Surprise

January 22nd
Wind

January 15th
Honesty

January 8th
My Car

January 3rd
Happy New Year

Lone Daffodil
4^th March 2007 

There is a lone daffodil in my garden lawn. There are many other daffodils in the border, all bright and yellowy, but this single daffodil stands alone amid the green grass. It seems quite fragile and delicate, like it might break in a gust of wind, unprotected by the other flowers. It looks isolated as if it’s been rejected by the daffodil community. It looks beautiful.

 I love the greenery of springtime after what seems like an age of dullness. The brown earth is now coming alive with colour and new life and it all looks so fresh and energised. It hasn’t had time to become broken or eaten or dishevelled – it just looks so clean and new. As I (with mega amounts of help from the parental units) did my back garden last summer, we came across a number of mysterious bulbs randomly spread around. We collected them up and placed them in the new border, ready for them to spring up around about nowish. It’s exciting seeing the green shoots appear, and watching to see what creation these bulbs held inside of them for so long. It seems we may have missed one and so a lone daffodil stands in the centre of the small green patch of grass.  

Being in my twenties I am something of a rarity in the church community. There are not a vast deal of us around. I run youth groups filled with people of the generation below, and then I go to meetings with people of generations above me (some of these are many generation above me!) and even when I attend worship it is a struggle to find anyone who is +/- 5 years from my age. It’s not that I’m saying I need to be surrounded by like-aged people, or that I can’t talk or relate to those significantly older or younger than me, it’s just that I sometimes feel like the lone daffodil.

 If I was retired I’d be in amongst the border plants, if I was a child I’d not look too out of place, if I had a family I’d fit in with the best of them. But I don’t – I don’t seem to fit, to belong. I’m stood alone in the middle of the lawn. Other people my age are climbing corporate ladders, are driven by the need to obtain more and more ‘things’ and are ultimately motivated in the pursuit of their own, personal happiness (broad generalisations, I know). They are not going to church – or at least not my church! They are not giving up their spare time to help others, to serve the less fortunate within their neighbourhoods, they are not turning against the hedonistic culture around them, they are not aware that money won’t bring them happiness (again with the generalisations). And I don’t fit it. I am not like other people my age. I stand out with my different morals and my ideas of what life should be like for everyone.

 Being different can be lonely. We are all different, with varying personalities, giftings and viewpoints – yet it seems we all clamour to fit in and be like everyone else. It’s not surprising when the media and our society is telling us we all should be the same. We should wear the same things, have the same look, think the same things. Difference is not valued. It makes me laugh when advertisers tell us to innovate and not imitate and yet they are pushing a product they want everyone to buy. ‘Be different and buy the same product everyone else is buying – then you get to fit in with everyone else, whilst still feeling like an individual!’ Duh – how stupid is that?

 As Christians we are called to be different, to be salt and light. It is not easy, it is lonely and it is a real struggle when, tired from being the different one in a secular school, workplace, friendship or home, you go to church and are different there too! But much as I love the pretty colours growing in my border, it is the bright contrast of the yellow against the green, the simple beauty and the strength of the single, lone, isolated daffodil that draws my eye to it every time. When I look out of my window I cannot help but gaze at the one daffodil for a long time before I look at the large group of daffodils growing neatly in the borders.  

If we, as Christians, are to have a real impact on humanity – and I believe when we put our mind to it we can change the world – we are going to have to get out of our comfort zone, out of the nice safety of ‘fitting in’, out of the churches and go into the world. It is once we are out there – admitting what we believe when we’re at school or work, talking to our friends & family about what Jesus has done for us, standing up for what is right, serving those the rest of society shuns – that the light of the Lord that we all carry will really start to shine in the darkness, that people will actually start to pay attention to the fact that we are different. They won’t be able to help but be changed but what they see in the strength and amazing beauty of a lone daffodil standing in the middle of the grass.

 So what I’m really saying is that we should all be different by being lone daffodils just like everyone else!!