Mom and Dad grew gladiolas and dahlias in the garden on our farm in Todd County. Mom planted the glads; Dad managed the dahlias. They are both beautiful flowers, delightful in shape and color. Even as a kid, I admired them. It didn’t seem possible that any other flower could match them. Then… I discovered irises.

It was the spring of 1972, toward the end of my freshman year at Freed-Hardeman College. I noticed the whole slope of the hill angling down from the parking lot by the administration building was covered with flowers. In response to my inquiry, “irises.”

They were truly magnificent! Such variety of color, such depth of tone, such elaborate design, such fine texture and detail. Coinciding with their eruption of beauty in such close proximity to the small building where Bro. Robert Taylor taught art was a particular assignment in my painting class: “Wet on Wet Technique.”

Rather than allowing ample drying time between segments and colors, you lay on one wet layer over another. As you work, you have to decide whether to let the colors “bleed” into each other or keep laying on enough paint to completely cover what is beneath. I chose to do a bouquet of irises for my assignment. A small cluster of green stalks topped with vibrant blooms.

It actually turned out rather well. The technique produced intense colors and a rich texture. Maybe one of the best paintings I’d done in my two years at F-HC. Until I added the final flower. For some reason, I added a final iris, off slightly to the side. The colors were true and accurate, capturing the shape and tones. But it looked like it had just floated into the painting while the artist was busy cleaning out brushes or stretching another canvas. It didn’t completely ruin the painting but it so flawed the balance and composition that I was ashamed of it.

But that didn’t dampen my love of irises.

We have a fair variety of them here at our tiny place in northeast Kansas. Randa has a bed of dwarf irises near the back door. We have some clustered around the base of the locust tree and another small bed behind the garage. Two years ago, I planted a bunch of bulbs around the old crosstie frame of the compost bed by the barn. A few right by the barn and some in front of the concrete retaining wall.

They are thriving. Yellows, golds, lavender, purple, white, plum with several double-colored blooms. An eruption of rich colors against the faded weathering of the old railroad ties, the fresh white of the new siding on the barn, the flat gray of poured concrete. An accent for a season, a diversion from the composting horse manure, a pleasant contrast.

We have similar irises in our lives, don’t we?

Those afternoons of pleasant conversation with family, evenings of laughter with friends, tender moments of intimate memories with the one walking through this world most closely with us. The sounds and sights of small children or grandchildren, absorbed in uninhibited play. Moments of worship when souls and spirits weave together an uplifting of praise and devotion, times of private prayer that empty the heart and fill the voids, walks in a quiet forest or a boundless plain or in view of majestic mountains. The faces of friends from long ago and far away.

Though the beauty of flowers pales too soon and even the finer moments of life sometimes fade from memory, we will one day walk in glory that never passes and fulfill love that endures even after hope and faith have ceased. And live in a beauty that transcends all that we have known. Even irises.