Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Even though I love many aspects of Nature, I confess that I am not a very good gardener.  That is why the plants in my yard that have endured over the years are those than can survive with little care (except perhaps for a brief soaker-hose during extreme drought).  One plant that has just managed to endure through tough times is a plant with an unusual common name -- the "yesterday-today-tomorrow plant."  It is so named because each flower is a deep blueish purple when first appearing but changes to a light shade the next day. On the third day, the flower has turned white.  And so, when flowers come frequently enough, they display a range of three colors.

The scientific name for the yesterday-today-tomorrow plant is Brunfelsia, so named for Otto Brunfels, who lived in Germany during the first half of the 1500's.  Those were tumultuous times because in 1517 Martin Luther posted his famous theses on a Roman Catholic church, thus beginning the Protestant Reformation.  Otto Brunfels' life exemplifies those changes:  He had trained in a Catholic monastery but later became a pastor of a Protestant church.  One thing endured through those decades:  Brunfels' interest in herbs, which were one source of medicines.  Although the three-volume work on herbs he wrote included sometimes questionable folklore, it also displayed woodblock illustrations, which was a fairly new innovation for printed books.  As the contemporary commentator John Lienhard states about Brunfels' compendium, "The images long outlived the words."

I know that biologists have to name species with Latin names. Nevertheless, I do enjoy how the common name for that Brunfelsia plant expresses one aspect of how humans experience time.  We remember yesterday.  We are aware of today. And we think ahead to tomorrow.  How should we handle our awareness of those three periods of time?

I think it is a reasonable assumption that anybody who has lived any length of time is bound to have some regrets about the past (even if they don't like to admit it). However, as  the 5th-century B.C.E poet Agathon wisely reminds us, “Even God cannot change the past.”

What about tomorrow?  Our modern, Westernized technologized societies change so rapidly that it makes life harder than it otherwise might be.  Our uncertainties about tomorrow can make it easy to worry about what challenges will come next.  Yet Jesus encouraged his followers by saying "Do not worry about tomorrow... Today's trouble is enough for today." [Matt. 6:34, NRSV]  (Is a bit of wry humor perhaps being displayed in his second sentence?)

What about today?  Many spiritual advisers (ranging from yoga teachers to authors of self-help books) tell us to "be present" to what is happening right now.  Or they phrase it that we should "live in the present."  I do need to cultivate awareness.  Nevertheless, I also need to draw upon my memories of the past, sometimes being sustained by them.  And I need to think about future days and plan for them.  I cannot very well be isolated in the present.

Maybe I can learn something from that yesterday-today-tomorrow plant.  Despite its name's dividing time into three parts, it is the same flower that endured and evolved through the string of three days.  There was actually a continuity through the course of time.

~ ~ ~

As you reflect upon your life, are there some continuities you would like to sustain?

(The quotation by John H. Lienhard is from his Engines of Our Ingenuity website, episode No. 2241, "Otto Brunfels.")
(The quotation by Agathon is taken from Bloomsbury Treasury of Quotations, edited by John Daintith, © 1994, p. 523.)
(The photo of flowers is by gailhampshire from Cradley, Malvern, U.K.
 and is used under a  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license..)