Orange or Brown?

I walked by my zinnias this morning and their brilliance made me stop and ponder their beauty. Next to a brilliant orange flower was a dying bloom, marked by the boring brown color. What a contrast. I paused to take in this ever-inspiring process of growing flowers.

As I continue preparing for this year's Portraits of White concert, I think of how this applies to following our dreams. For instance, I'm currently working on writing a song about snow for this year's concert. I LOVE snow. I know I'm weird, but that's what the title theme song is all about and snow removes the winter blahs, at least for me. I love sharing my heart with the audience each year and finding creative ways to make us all pause for one night and be inspired. Writing a song is one of the ways I go about this.

I'm watching a lot of ideas and lyrics turn brown and "die" because they just aren't there yet. But within the death of those old ideas and lyrics, lie seeds to new ideas and the more I keep "working the soil" in songwriting, the more my little garden of writing grows. You'll get to "pick a bouquet of inspiration" from the music the night of the concert and take it home with you and it will all be because of the cycle of how things grow.

Everything has a process. I would prefer to have only bright orange blossoms growing all the time, but to get those beautiful flowers, they must die to produce new seeds for the next year. At some point in the next few weeks, I'll pluck all the dead blossoms and store them in the basement so they can dry. Within the fading brown petals lie plenty of seeds to grow more next year. In fact, my yard has flourished with zinnias this year thanks to all the seeds I gathered and kept last year.

Maybe you've had to move recently and start new friendships. Perhaps you didn't get the grade you hoped for in class or you've had a sudden crisis of health.

Whatever you are facing these days will often contain brown, "dead-looking" flowers, but within those dry blossoms lie the seeds to a potentially bigger and better garden. As you sort through the seemingly fading blossoms, look for little seeds of hope. They can be planted with the promise of Spring.

At some point, your flowers may end up on someone else's table and bring them complete delight. You may never know what kind of impact your little seeds may have. Just keep tending your garden. There is life in both orange and brown!

To learn more about this Portraits of White concert, click here.