Face the sun

Last spring, my wife and a couple of my kids started a seedling project that involved sunflowers and morning glories. Now, several months later, we are experiencing the results. Morning glory vines and flowers cover a large portion of our deck railing and sunflowers grow tall along the back of our house, some reaching the roof.

One of the by-products of dozens of sunflowers is a large number of seeds. These are prized by the birds in our neighborhood, who have been feeding on them for a couple of weeks. Last weekend, the squirrels discovered this new source of food and have been wreaking havoc, destroying plants and leaving great piles of chaff on the deck in their effort to gather the seeds.

I stood guard one morning, chasing squirrels off as they approached the sunflowers. In the middle of my vigil, I noticed the exquisite morning light falling on a number of blooms. Several bumblebees flew from flower to flower, gathering nectar and trailing pollen dust. I decided it was a good time to grab my camera. A lot of patience and a lot of misses resulted in yesterday's photo of a bee making its final approach to a sunflower head. In between bees, I noticed this small flower through a gap between sunflower stalks, turning to face the morning sun.

So often we go about our daily routines without pausing to think about things that really matter. For the flower, it's only goal is to face the source of life.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. Acts 17:24-25

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2007 James Jordan.