"Come after me" : Shepherd quality of a Discipleship way of life: Daily wonders, peace, joy, and witness

Every day morning, however busy my day schedule is, I pay a quick visit to my backyard looking at my plants daily blooms of flowers. While I do that I get to enjoy the presence of birds and squirrels in my yard and trees. I only water the plants in the weekend and I get to spend time with them during weekends and holidays.  As I usually like to place myself into the hands of divine providence, my plants also in the hands of nature. They grow with very minimal attention , if not with no attention. I am a garden lover not a traditional gardener, so my neighbor and friend always wonder at my garden's blooms with no care.
This year I have added more additions of Roses, Gladiolus, Hosta, different kinds of mints, Salvia, asciatic lillies of many colors and evergreen bushes. I take care in planting. I select the place for each plant with great deal of thinking. I visualize the plant in the full grown size in the place I plant before planting them. If it is a bloom, I visualize the bloom before I plant. Once I planted them, I trust the nature to take care of it. I trust the plant its natural course of survival. I really think there are only few things human can intervene and make changes to the best. But there are millions and millions of events, situations, and process, etc... in nature will be at it best with out our interventions by God's grace alone in majority of the cases they will do better without our interventions. I also believe, any undue or over attention to anything in the life can turn into an idol worship, which could take our attention from God. With all our effort, there is a major part God plays in every one of His creatures including human.

My roses in the front and backyard put up a spectacular spring display by their blooms. I enjoyed them everyday. My neighbors admired them. Among the new arrivals of this year, Hostas have grown well and they are in bloom right now. Mints and Salvia have adopted to the land and they are in purple blooms. Evergreens have adjusted to the soil and they show their growth. In my daily visit to the backyard, I see the natural wonders of blooms every day among my Roses. Their display of colors, aroma is a magical wonders and splendors of inspirations. New roses have started to bloom three weeks ago.  I enjoyed the white Rose's first bloom among the new arrivals, followed by the orange rose, followed by  a magical red rose, and yellow roses. Last year yellow roses displayed a magical spectacular display during Spring with their multitudes of blooms. Encouraged by that display, I planted many yellow and white rose stems this year. They all seem to do well. I happy by their performances. Today, I saw the first bloom of Sharon roses bush, and the first bloom of my jasmine bush. Jasmine flower is very dear to every Indian woman heart. In our culture, we wear this flower in our hair every day. Indian women's attire will be incomplete without these flowers. After a long hunt, I found four bushes two years ago among them two of them survived for this year.  I wear this flower when I am at home or on the holidays. Now that I am in summer holidays, I could enjoy this flower.

Special quality of the Jasmine flower is its sweet scented aroma. The aroma is so subtle, so gentle, it would draw the attention of any heart who is wearing them and around them. I think discipleship life is also similar to this. The life of discipleship permeates through its virtues, gifts, and fruits as aroma of the flower to the world without any words or advertisement. The mere existence of such life brings the good news. While the shepherds of the Church is called for the Apostolic work, I believe every believer, christian, and Catholic is called to live a discipleship life like these flowers' scent. The life which is like the shepherds of the Bethlehem who visited Jesus after receiving the message from the Angels. As they visited the manger, they were in the presence of the divine king Jesus Christ. Being just near Him brought them wonder, joy, and peace among those shepherds. In the same way we also witness the wonder, joy , and peace of God's presence in the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit through our lives in Discipleship with Jesus Christ.