Passions, our better angels . . .

Our better angels . . . emotions that show up in our behaviors.  Our better angels can be positive and make a real difference or be harmless, but provide hours of pleasure for the doer.

 

Arvada Simcoe had been showing her garden all day, but you never saw her energy or enthusiasm lag.

Arvada Simcoe is a lady who most would say is ruled by her better angels. She is friendly, positive, energetic, and community-minded. Anyone who knows Arvada learned very quickly her love of gardening, and specifically how flowers and wildlife produce beauty, pleasure and hours of enjoyment. Arvada always said her garden took away the stress of a hard day. And she never tired of talking about her flowers, varieties, what works . . . and the plants that attracted hummingbirds and butterflies. One of my favorite pictures of Arvada is pointing out flowers and plants of her garden during the Quail Valley Backyard Tour.

 

 

Arvada promoted the Seeds for Life Program that helped poor people in Central America raise cash crops to become independent. It also supplies  community gardens in this country to provide people with better nutrition.

Her better angels benefitted her neighbors and many friends with inspiration and pleasure. She loved to share her passion for gardening. She was pointing out a beautiful yellow flowering bush, Yellow Cestrum, to me in April. She thought we should encourage planting more of it. She talked how the Hummingbirds loved the nectar of the flowers, but also used the bush for shelter. Other birds like the berries. It was positive and passionate. Now that she’s moved to be nearer her brother, I’ll miss my Arvada fix . . .

 

This memory was triggered by my own garden. I like to keep my Hummingbird feeders in the shade; so for the individual feeders, I planted a hanging basket of Torenias or summer pansies and put two individual feeders in it. It’s hanging near a suet feeder for the Woodpeckers. There, just out of the window, was a picture: a Ruby-throated Hummingbird at her feeder and a male Downey Woodpecker at the suet cakes. All within three feet of the other. With the pink and blue Torenias hovered over by the hummingbird and the small Woodpecker with his red skullcap and striking black and white vertical stripes, it’s a mental picture much like the one I have of Arvada. A passion turned positive, or at least harmless. 

None of us are ruled by our better angels all the time. So we strive to focus on our better angels. Or our worse angels can take over. Passion turns to hate, often fueled by ignorance and fear. Worse angels festered and obsessed in a white supremacist who took his hatred out on a Sikh Temple.  

The irony is the turbans the Sikhs wear to profess their fidelity to their beliefs likely triggered hatred that made them targets. While the Sikhs don’t call them better angels, one of their tenets is to engage in daily prayer and meditation to prevent the five sins of ego: pride, lust, greed, anger and attachment. Sikhs practice community service and strive to live better lives. They believe in keeping their bodies healthy and pure of tobacco and alcohol. In my opinion, we need more people like them who live by a code of conduct that stresses humility, hard work and self-less sharing. They also welcome non-believers into their fellowship, practice equality.

They responded to the shooting and losing six of their members in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, by praying for the perpetrator and with sorrow, but calm dignity. Their better angels.

Reprint from 8-15-2012 Fort Bend Independent