Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”

The image of human beings springing up like flowers and blooming, reaching their peak for ever so short a time may by this time be a cliché. Psalm 90 is one expression of this: “(Lord,) You sweep us away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning. In the morning it springs up and flowers; by evening it withers and fades.” (vs. 5-6).

If we think of the late teens or early twenties as the peak of human beauty and vigor, it really is as brief as that moment when a flower has all its freshness. The petals of a rose are quickly discolored. A slight bruising can put a lily on the way to decay. The smiles and the glow, the enthusiasm and effervescence of eighteen-year olds give way all too soon to worried brows, tight lips, cautious smiles and wider waists.

I could stop here and let you draw your conclusions, but I have a couple, possibly not the most moralistic. One is that we might be stimulated by the example of the flower to be more protective or, better, more reverential of the fragility of the young. And this, despite their own bravado and carelessness.

Too, the freshness and vitality, often the beauty of youth deserves some appreciation. Where else among humans do we find such agility, such energy, such wholeheartedness, such readiness for something new! (Also, certainly in two-year olds!) There's a lot to be said for youth and what its presence does for any of us, no matter how old.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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