Unexpected Color (in weeds?!)

Have you ever felt like a weed--the one who was ignored while the flowers got all the attention and praise? Or are you a weed as a wild one--doing things that others dare not do?

Growing into my teen years, I was definitely a weed--skinny, underdeveloped (still am in some places!), and shy when thrown into a sea of new students in a big town junior high and high school. Mother didn't let me forget that I had skinny legs, didn't need a bra, and that my shoulder blades stuck out. I would come to enjoy my redder than blond hair, but Mother had wanted brunette, brown-eyed children like Dad (she forgot that he had 4 reddish-haired siblings as well as the three others who were dark). I wanted that dark hair and those big brown eyes and felt like the biggest weed around those who had that coloring. At the new schools, I stood on the sidelines socially. I was the weed in the midst of a flock of flowers. Like a bee, I was attracted to the flowers and had no interest in hanging out with other weeds.

As an adult, I was more the weed who didn't mind standing out by having career positions that men usually filled. Often it didn't make me popular, but I didn't mind being different in that way. Had I changed colors from the masses? Yes, but they weren't the colors of transformation. They were the colors that made me feel better than.

The weeds/plants pictured above were all green earlier this summer. Their sizes and shapes were different, but they were recognizable as the same species.

As we develop spiritually and shed our need to be who someone else wanted us to be, as we allow our divinity to shine through, our colors change. We can be the person we were planted here on earth to be--the colors that are ours. As the plants pictured above, we can be as different as our talents. We still belong to the same family--that of human beings, but our unique selves define our shapes and sizes.

I love the colors of the "weeds" in these photos. They made me think of our colors as human beings. Do we show up as light when we walk into a room? Do we bring darkness and gloom with us? A woman recently told me that I brought so much of the Spirit into the small room where we were meeting that it got in her way. An interesting concept--right? Perhaps she was in the Spirit's way? It was, however, a different way for me to be seen.

This morning I am aware of the origins of a couple of my huge pet peeves--ways that others irritate me by being their false selves. I hardly have room to talk. Centering prayer continues to allow me to be in touch with my various false-self parts--to notice them until I can't stand myself in those areas, to allow my opinions, anger and jealousy formed in early childhood to come to the light and be available for Divine healing. It's work--sometimes worth a laugh, often causing tears--but transformation isn't intended to be easy.

As I look at the beautiful colors of fall plants and leaves and know that they are about to fall and die until another season, I ask the Almighty to let those false-self parts that are present to me this morning die too. I pray that in another season, I will be more compassionate with my fellow travellers on this journey.