One of the pieces of work I picked up this spring involved the famous CDC-Kaiser Permanente study about Adverse Childhood Experiences — fascinating, but not an uplifting read. This study, not surprisingly, recorded that one way to break the cycle of childhood maltreatment is through positive relationships and experiences — perhaps tending flowers.

Where I live now, previous owners planted walls of lilacs between our house and the town. The walls have gateless openings where we walk (or run) through, and the lilacs are different varieties and colors. These early spring/beginning summer mornings, when the dew is heavy on the grass sprinkled with white and purple violets, the air is fragrant. Mystery upon mystery: who planted these flowers and how can they smell so beautiful?

On the Memorial Day weekend, here’s a bouquet of flowers and mystery.

Man is always marveling at what he has blown apart, never at what the universe has put together, and this is his limitation.

— Loren Eiseley