a Rose is a Rose is a Rose....

"That is a beautiful necklace!" cried the waitress, pointing at my neck while my parents, Asherel, and I settled into our seats in the diner.
"Thank you," I said, "My daughter made it."
She looked genuinely and appropriately impressed, "What is the material?"
"It's glass fusion."
"Really nice job," she said to Asherel, "Do you do other jewelry too?"
"Not much anymore, I used to make beads."
"I make beads!" said the waitress, "I make them out of rose petals."
You just never know what fascinating things you can learn if you are just nice to people, I thought.
"You make beads out of rose petals?" I asked.
"Yes, it is what they used to make rosaries out of," she said, "That's how rosary beads got their name."
I had never stopped to wonder how rosary beads got their name! I love this world full of interesting news!
"How do you make them hard?" I asked.
"You mush them all together, roll them, and in the old days they would dry them in the sun, but I bake them in the oven."

When I got home, I researched the origin of rosary beads. The use of rose petal beads arose in the 1920s, and there is no indication that it was the origin of the beads or the name. However she was correct in the process, and I didn't doubt that she did indeed make rose beads. The name rosary actually comes from a legend from the middle ages. A monk was reciting "hail Mary's" as a robber approached. The monk was tossing rose petals to the ground. The robber of course, repents of his evil intentions, and the Virgin Mary, who is also watching, gathers the rose petals and makes a rosary, or garland of roses for her head. Hence the beads which Catholics use to pray with became known as rosaries.

Gertrud Stein made roses famous again in her poetic line, "rose is a rose is a rose."
It was the equivalent of what so many teens say today, "Whatever." Or what I find myself saying often, "It is what it is." Take it or leave it, a rose will always be a rose. Some people will make them into beads to stay focused on their devotions to God, some will just smell their glorious scent passing by a garden, and some will never stop to smell them. No matter what the bystander does, the rose remains a rose. I thought how that applies to God as well. We can choose to worship Him, notice Him in passing, or walk by without any sense of His presence at all...but He is still there. He is still waiting in all His fullness, all His beauty, all His glory seeking to envelop us
with His magnificent bouquet of blessing if we will pause long enough to sniff.

Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

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