Dominican Preaching through Word and Image
“Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.
The Miraculous Flower If we belong to the sun and its warmth, to the bud and the sprout, to the miraculous flower, we also belong to the wind, the naked branch, the cold.
God is the friend of silence. We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence.
It’s not like you have to empty your mind and then you can listen to the flowers. If you try to listen to the voice of flowers, you naturally start emptying your mind. For me, ikebana is a practice of the mind.
In the scenery of spring, nothing is better, nothing worse. The flowering branches are; some long, some short.
Our task is to take this Earth so deeply and wholly into ourselves that it will resurrect within our being.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.