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Purple flowers bloom at Ravine Gardens State Park.
I went walking looking for a column idea related to Easter on Wednesday morning. And I stumbled right into it.
Actually, I knew what I wanted to find at Ravine Gardens State Park. Just a flower in bloom.
Now, azalea blooms have pretty much come and gone inside the park. But I figured a visit would reveal some of nature’s other beauty to me.
Spring is here. Today is Good Friday and Easter Sunday is upon us. This is an Easter-related column, maybe not one you would expect as being solely based on religion but on new life itself.
Easter is a special day celebrating Christ’s victory over the grave. Christians and churches across the globe will mark Easter Sunday with special services. Easter is about verses such as these from Luke 24, verses 5-6:
“… Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen …”
That’s the message of Easter.
But Easter is also about time with family. We hope to visit with our son and daughter-in-law. It will be nice to spend time with both our children and see our grandson enjoy his first Easter.
Folks everywhere will hopefully get to enjoy nice meals together with family. Ham, deviled eggs and a coconut cake are among the staples for us.
And on the lighter side, there will be Easter baskets and Easter egg hunting adventures for many children. The church I attended for years in Florence, Alabama, had an Easter tradition of gathering all the children up front for an Easter picture in their Sunday best. Everyone always enjoyed that, except maybe for a crying baby or two.
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Speaking of churches, it’s a common phrase in North Alabama to hear that there’s a church on every corner. The same could be said about Putnam County.
I wondered how many churches there are in Putnam County. I reached out to Property Appraiser Tim Parker who graciously took some time to pull that information together. Would you care to take a guess?
Before I give you the answer, I noticed another church-related story this week that caught my attention. According to Gallup via Religion News Service, for the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque.
Gallup data shows 47% of Americans now say they belong to a house of worship, down from 70% in the mid-1990s and from 50% in 2019.
Younger Americans are increasingly disconnected from organized religion, according to the report from Gallup. But the number of older Americans who are members of a house of worship has also declined in recent years, according to the report.
My longtime minister in Florence always said the church was one generation from going away. Let’s hope this isn’t the case. I’m not a preacher, but we each have our own beliefs and theories as to why some have apparently lost their faith.
Back to the question above. Churches are plentiful in Putnam.
According to Parker’s data, there are roughly 200 churches in Putnam County. So maybe it isn’t an exaggeration to say there’s one on every corner.
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Easter and spring each symbolize new life and renewal in some form. That’s why I wanted to find a flower in bloom – specifically a purple one.
Purple flowers were my mother’s favorite. I lost her in 2007, but her birthday was last week and it’s always a poignant day for me. On March 25 each year, I try to remember the good times with my mother and I do miss her every day.
Those good times revolved around family meals on holidays such as Easter, especially if it was an opportunity for her to see her grandchildren.
It was also an opportunity for her to show off her flowers – tulips, roses, petunias, whatever. If it bloomed, she loved it.
She loved flowers not only in her yard, but decorative flowers, whether they were on cakes or cards.
Needless to say, flowers were always an easy gift choice for her when her birthday rolled around each March.
So, a few minutes into my walk at Ravine Gardens State Park, I saw a bouqet of purple flowers blooming amid a growth of other vegetation on a hillside. Nothing otherwise spectacular to see on that particular hillside, but those purple blooms splendidly stood out above everything else.
I thought about how much my mother would have enjoyed seeing those flowers, how much she would have enjoyed a loop through the state park on the morning after a rain shower, seeing the grand entrance to the park marked by stones, palm trees and fountains. I do miss her.
I took a picture of the purple blooms with my phone. Later that night, I was looking at the photo and zoomed in to see rain droplets on the stems of the flowers that looked like teardrops.
They were, of course, from a morning rain shower. But, I couldn’t help but think they might have been from my mom. She’d been known to shed a tear or two when receiving flowers.
And on this particular morning, a few of those teardrops could just have easily been mine.
Happy Easter.
Wayne Smith is the editor of the Palatka Daily News. His email is wsmith@palatkadailynews.com.