A Garden Parable .. The story of the rose.

Isaiah 61:3 ‘… To give them beauty for ashes …’

It is not so easy in our modern era to see how beauty from ashes works in this ancient prophecy. Yet perhaps the gardener can help to untangle this mystery. The story of the rose, an emblem of beauty from ancient times, helps explain. Strangely, the rose’s lovely blooms and sweet scent are said to be enhanced with ashes at her feet.

How do ashes work you ask? How can they possibly enhance the rose’s beauty? It might be easy to dismiss this old gardeners’ trick of tossing a handful of ash at the feet of each rose. Yet, as the wise gardener knows, it is in the unseen that this transformation of beauty takes place.

Who knew the value of ash from which the beautiful is said to emerge? Ash itself has no great mystery. It is made simply from discarded twigs tossed into a fire so hot it reduces them to dust. Unwanted garden waste is transformed into a pile of ash seemingly without life and worth.

How can the gardener possibly know what to do with this ash; this pile of grey dust that can blow away in a puff of wind?

From gardener to gardener, an ancient practise of putting ashes at the rose’s feet has proven worthy of passing on. This wisdom knows that the value of the ash is in how it feeds the heart of the rose. Such wisdom has come from the Original Gardener, the One who made Eden, where that which seems unworthy is transformed into the esteemed and valued.

Here is the ultimate alchemy, where worthless particles of dust are passed from cell to cell within the rose plant to feed and impart strength to the whole. And in that strength, created from the ashes of life, the rose begins to blossom, discovering her own true value and worth. Passers-by now stop and admire the loveliness of the rose’s blooms after the ash has done its’ work.

And from a distance, The Gardener looks on with a knowing smile as each passer-by in the garden pauses to sniff the sweet scent of the rose. After a moment of taking in the rose’s beauty and perfume, they now walk on, refreshed.

So it seems that this ancient wisdom has wrought something worthy from that which is deemed unworthy. Even those who would dismiss such wisdom cannot deny the beauty of the rose. And whether or not the alchemy that turns ash to beauty is acknowledged, its truth remains for those who would seek it.