Only the Beautiful

by Susan Meissner

I was enchanted by the way the word amaryllis fell on my ear, and the color that filled my mind when I said it out loud. It was such a beautiful word. And I loved even more the notion that its bulb was a promise of beauty to come, despite the harshness of winter.

Just like it is blooming now. An amaryllis is always waiting to delight and surprise you, even when your world seems cold and dark.

People will always distrust what they don’t understand. And what they distrust, they cannot love.

Who defines what is weakness? I’d wondered. Isn’t it only the strong who get to decide that? Isn’t it only the strong who have the power to act on what they decide? How can that be right or fair or good?

A book is always in many places at once. That is its singular wonder. A book takes one voice speaking and makes it many. A book can shine far brighter and longer than I ever could on my own.

It can. It is stopped. All the time. Not with a magic wand or hopeful thoughts or wishful thinking or mere words, but with courage and resolve and the refusal to allow those without voices to remain unheard. This is what makes us sublimely human, isn’t it? Not unsullied genetic perfection, but when we stubbornly love and honor one another. Just the way we are.

How we treat one another is what we are still able to do something about.

With giving, there is cost, isn’t there? There is always cost. Sometimes it is an easy sum to hand over. And sometimes it exacts from you the whole measure of your heart.