Issue 052 PDF Version - Christian Ethics Today
Issue 052 PDF Version - Christian Ethics Today
Issue 052 PDF Version - Christian Ethics Today
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Just outside my study window a rose is blooming. It is a<br />
very special rose, the last rose of summer.<br />
The rose is gorgeously red, exquisitely formed, deliciously<br />
fragrant, proudly and maybe even defiantly alone in my small<br />
rose garden, and a little bigger than it could be expected to be<br />
this late in the season, as if to show the world that it can<br />
thumb its nose at the approaching winter with its blue<br />
northers, its killing frosts, its dreadful ice storms, and its hard<br />
freezes.<br />
I salute this last rose of summer—smartly, respectfully,<br />
admiringly.<br />
It calls to mind the Russian folk tale (which I think I<br />
remember from Anton Chekov) of a man who had fallen off<br />
a high cliff but who had managed to grab hold of a small<br />
bush on his downward plunge. The bush itself was clinging<br />
precariously to life in a tiny crevice and was itself slowly turning<br />
loose of its hold. Facing certain death in a matter of minutes,<br />
the man saw a beautiful flower blooming at the side of<br />
the bush and could not resist the urge to put out his tongue<br />
to taste its single drop of precious nectar. What comes later<br />
will just have to come. For now, carpe diem, seize the day,<br />
savor the moment. Revel in this rose.<br />
This last rose of summer also calls to mind Robert<br />
Browning’s immortal Rabbi Ben Ezra:<br />
Grow old along with me.<br />
The best is yet to be.<br />
The last of life for which the first was made.<br />
Youth shows but half.<br />
Trust God, see all, nor be afraid.<br />
This last rose of summer has called to mind again the<br />
28 • CHRISTMAS 2004 • CHRISTIAN ETHICS TODAY<br />
“Whatsoever things are lovely . . . think on these things” Philippians 4:8<br />
The Last Rose Of Summer<br />
By Foy Valentine, Founding Editor<br />
Dallas, TX<br />
story told by my good friend, Brooks Hays, said to be the<br />
best raconteur on the Washington scene since Abraham<br />
Lincoln. Brooks had just written a good book called This<br />
World A <strong>Christian</strong>’s Workshop.<br />
Someone asked his father in northwestern Arkansas, “Mr.<br />
Hays have you read Brook’s last book? To which the elderly<br />
father replied, “I hope so.” Who knows when the last book<br />
will have been written? Who knows when the last farewell<br />
will have been spoken? Who knows when the last cup of cold<br />
water will have been given? Some day the last rose will<br />
bloom.<br />
This last rose of summer reminds me, too, of a wonderful<br />
old gospel song which my deacon Daddy, the song leader in<br />
our Pleasant Union Baptist Church where I grew up, used to<br />
sing, as my Aunt Ruby Johnson played the piano, “Work for<br />
the Night Is Coming.” The last verse of this timely admonition<br />
to redeem the time is lodged warmly and redemptively<br />
in my mind,<br />
Work for the night is coming,<br />
Under the sunset skies;<br />
While their bright tints are glowing,<br />
Work for daylight flies.<br />
Work till the last beam fadeth,<br />
Fadeth to shine no more;<br />
Work while the night is darkening,<br />
When man’s work is o’er.<br />
Yes. Everybody stand back. Let this beautiful blossom do<br />
its thing.<br />
The last rose of summer could possibly make a wave of<br />
melancholy wash over me. Instead, it is flooding me with