Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Cheryl Boardman
Monday, July 8, 2024
These wildflowers are called scarlet gilia or skyrockets. They grow on the east side of the Cascades in Washington and are found from Southern British Columbia down to Northern Mexico. Their bright red color is kind of hard to miss when they bloom on the side of the road but they are also quite delicate and tend to blow in the breeze – especially when you are trying to get a picture of them.
According to Lewis Clark, Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, they have an “unpleasant smell and wilt almost immediately after cutting.” That is all the more reason not to pick them as they are also not common. Apparently, if you try to grow them on the west side of the Cascades, the plant will grow but doesn’t flower.
In the book of Isaiah, people (part of creation) are compared to flowers that don’t last, but the word of God (the Creator) lasts forever:
A voice says, “Shout!”
I said, “What shall I shout?”
“These people are nothing but grass,
their love fragile as wildflowers.
The grass withers, the wildflowers fade,
if GOD so much as puffs on them.
Aren’t these people just so much grass?
True, the grass withers and the wildflowers fade,
but our God’s Word stands firm and forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8 (The Message)
For further clarification, God was before the beginning and the Word was God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (NIV)