The lupines are beginning to bloom.
I noticed one flower a week ago. Today that one flower had become a patch of purple. “Spring has sprung” is fun to say but “spring is springing” more accurately describes the situation, as more and more plants will push forth, spring up, and unfurl their beauty.
As I walked, I was reminded of one of my favorite picture books, Miss Rumphius. As a child, Alice promises her grandfather that one day she will travel to far-flung places and when she is old, she will settle down by the sea…just like her grandfather.
Alice’s grandfather agrees and adds: “…there is a third thing you must do … You must do something to make the world more beautiful.” Alice promised, and yet Alice did not know what her something beautiful could be.
When Alice grows up, people call her Miss Rumphius. She works in a library and helps people find books they will love. She travels the world and, when she is old, she settles by the sea. She still doesn’t know how she will add beauty to the world.
One spring, Miss Rumphius plants lupine in her garden. After a hard and cold, solitary and mostly bed-bound winter, Miss Rumphius joyfully discovers lupines blooming over the hill from her home. The cold wind had scattered seeds from her tiny patch
People begin to call Miss Rumphius ‘That Crazy Old Lady’ as she wanders over fields and headlands, tossing lupine seeds from her pockets. The next spring, however, as lupines burst forth in glory, they called that crazy old lady ‘The Lupine Lady.”
Miss Rumphius found a way to make the world more beautiful, just as she had promised her grandfather she would. In turn, she asked her great-niece and her friends, who have personally beheld the wonder of lupines surrounding their schoolhouse and church and fields, to find their own ways to make the world more beautiful. The most difficult promise, the most important.
What will you do to make the world more beautiful?
