On Certainty

I was thinking today about the immutability of some businesses, and the assurance that many people seek in finding a line of work.

For if we had certainty in earning our keep would it not be a relief to our day to day stresses? Perhaps we may not find meaning in our toils, but an empty stomach trumps a lack of purpose.

I am looking at tulips and white roses now, carefully arranged. Even from a bit away they emit a light scent. The room I am in is much too hot and while they've turned on the fans it is not having too much of an effect.

I suppose that the job of a florist is a safe one, no matter the state of the world. It is a warm vocation, buffeted from the cold and the rain. The setting is defined by its humidity and colors. Vibrant splashes from half a world a way, cut in the jungle among unknown bird songs under a foreign moon; or perhaps in a factory; then shipped via airplane, by truck, in the hands of strangers to arrive here on a rainy Sunday.

We're told that any certainty is a mirage though, for eventually:

when the almond tree blossoms

and the grasshopper drags itself along

and desire no longer is stirred.

Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.

Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,

and the golden bowl is broken;

before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,

and the wheel broken at the well,

and the dust returns to the ground it came from,

and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

So we stand to sing a hymn, because duty requires it and it is just.

My friends daughter is in front of me. She is four. She can't help but fidget, and eventually notices a flower that has fallen. She brings it to her father who puts in his lapel.

She looks back at me, her hair is light and her eyes are blue. They are the same as her mothers were who now rests in a box next to the flowers.

She was a good woman.

I am very sad she is gone.