Looking forward to dandelions

This will be a ... flowery post.

I've been thinking about virtues lately. I thought for a while that the virtue I really wanted to work toward was Perfect Empathy. I thought this would be such a Christlike thing to have.

But I realized today that completely understanding another human is not the root of Christianity. Love is, and empathy doesn't guarantee love. It might even be a greater form of love when it is without perfect understanding; if I knew every motive and every emotion of a murderer, or a brat, it would be easy - a cinch - to love them. But if they did me, or anyone, a wrong, and I didn't understand why they made their choice, and I loved them anyway - that would be some virtue, huh?

So I hereby revise my goal. To Perfect Compassion, Perfect Charity, Perfect Love.

In other news, I'm really looking forward to the dandelions.

Historically, I've never been a huge fan of summer or spring. But this year is different. I'm loving and looking forward to all the seasons. Yep, every one of them. Especially the transitional week between them - that's the really exciting part. From summer to fall, winter to spring. Those are the best parts of the year. And the best parts of those are the leaves and the dandelions.

The really great thing about dandelions is that they make you happy twice. First you get the little yellow flowers, which you can chain together to make bracelets, crowns, or if you're ambitious, a necklace. These little organic jewels are the symbol of everything summer vacation ever represented to me, they make me feel like queen of the long walk, the rope swing, the back yard.

And then, bless their hearts, the amazing little weeds turn into airy globes of seed-bearing dirigibles, and they invite you to help them launch their babies into the world. How can you not be made oppressively happy by this? That little cloud you make when you blow on a puffy dandelion, that is one of my favorite things.

I told you this was a flowery post.