Okay, so I have a thing about dandelions. 
I don’t exactly remember them in their yellow flower form, but I do remember growing up and blowing the whimsical “parachute ball” (as they call it) all over the place.

I didn’t know this caused more dandelions to grow. I’m sure my parents really enjoyed that. Oh, the fun and intimidating process of flower reproduction. [Helped along by many children and dreamers alike.]

It’s not as much me who has a thing for dandelions than it is my wife, Hannah. She loves them and therefore brought me into loving them. I didn’t have a reason to not like them. I guess I’ve never had a garden of my own before.

Hannah wrote me a story a couple of years ago called, “Brown and Green” in which my super talented buddy, Kyle Hilton illustrated for us as a surprise gift to Hannah for her birthday. We worked so much on it [Well, Kyle deserves mostly all credit!] and it has been one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. It sits there, on our shelf along with other children’s books about shapes, justice, plants, love, St. Francis and the like.

The story talks about a girl who leaves the comforts of home and all things familiar to be with the unloved ones of the world.
I was so drawn into Hannah’s metaphor - that of the dandelions being the unloved - the discarded - the weeds of society.

Her story takes her to Africa, where she grew up with her family. It follows her back to Oregon and into India where she finds a Sparrow singing songs of hope and sad little durges. [And this part of the story can maybe be saved for another day.]

When we think of dandelions, we think of weeds. We think, “Gotta get those outta there before they take out my whole garden!”

As we watch these plants, society deems “weeds”, we step on them and throw them onto the margins where they eventually become part of the Earth again and part of that Great Mystery.

So it’s no wonder, when I see dandelions, my heart becomes soft. I think about our friends who society deems unfit to grow among others.

A few days ago, I noticed a big clump of yellow dandelions growing along our sidewalk. They weren’t growing anywhere else, but our sidewalk.
I’d like to think they felt safe.
They felt loved and appreciated as a part of this ebb and flow of creation.

And when society pulls out their roots and places them among the discarded, we will find them and slowly plant their roots into the warm soil where they belong..

…in a garden the way it should be.
…in a garden for dandelions.

“Brown and green and all the colors
we are lifted and raised.
Like bread.
Like the backs of the dying.
All of us are grown to God’s self.
…especially the dandelions.”
-HHC



[The book is available to download for free online, if you’d like to check it out. Just go here: http://tinyurl.com/ydjjl9p ]