“Mysteries, truths hidden from all but the most diligent and seeking of eyes.”

“Why is it so, Papa? Why would God not want everyone to know all they can about him?”

“He does, Sabina.”

“Why, then, are there so many mysteries? Why are so many things hard to understand?”

“For the same reason that some of a garden’s most spectacular wonders are hidden under the ground for all but a short time of the year, and even then are truly revealed only to those who love them.”

“I do not understand you, Papa.”

The baron walked a few steps, dug a knife out of his pocket, then clipped a stalk from a nearby bush that boasted a bright orange rose, well opened and lush, at its tip. He brought it back and handed it to his daughter as he sat down on the bench beside her.

“Tell me, Sabina,” he said, “is this a spectacular flower?”

“Yes, of course—it’s beautiful.”

“Do you think all of your uncle Otto’s friends in Berlin, at his garden party, do you think they would admire a rose such as this?”

“Yes. They were admiring all the flowers that were in bloom, and all the cut flowers in vases about the grounds too.”

“Do you think they admired them for the same reasons you and I do, or only for the bright colors and pleasant aroma?”

“How do you mean? Do we not love them for their colors and smell too?”

“Of course. But most of all for the deeper truths they have to tell us… their mysteries… their secrets… the glimpses they give us of eternal things.”

“Perhaps you are right. I doubt any of the people at Uncle Otto’s party were thinking of all that when they saw his flowers.”

“People see on different levels, Sabina. There are different kinds of eyes. There are inner eyes and outer eyes. That is why our Lord spoke of people seeing and hearing, but not perceiving. Some people see but don’t see. They hear but don’t hear. All your life I have been trying to train you to truly see, and that is why I brought you here so often when you were young, so that you would learn to love the earth and what the Father brings out of it.”

“In God’s growing things are contained more mysteries and lessons than we will ever know,” said his daughter. “You have told me so many times.”

The baron rose to his feet and walked some distance to a barren spot in one of the rows where the ground had been cultivated and several holes dug for the planting of some new roses. He knelt down, scooped up a handful of earth, then returned to his daughter and sat down.

“What do you see here in my hand, Sabina?”

“Soil.”

“Do you see color, do you smell the perfume of the rose?”

She shook her head.