Food for thought: The snail and the rose-bush

Jeff and I have been reading from a book of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales at night. Some of the stories are just plain strange, but quite a few have deep truths that nestle beneath the strangeness. An excerpt from our story last night:

Soon a new year began; and the rose came out and the snail came out.

‘You’re an old rose now,’ the snail said. ‘It’s time you began to die. You’ve given the world all you had in you. Whether it mattered is a question I’ve never had time to consider. But it’s plain to see that you haven’t done a scrap for your inner development, or something else would have come out of you. Can you justify that? You’ll soon be only a dried-up stick! Do you see what I mean?’

‘You frighten me!’ said the rose-bush. ‘I never thought of that!’

‘No, you’ll never have gone in for much thinking! Have you ever accounted for yourself; for why you bloomed and how blooming came about? In what way, and why no other way?’

‘No!’ said the rose-bush. ‘I bloomed for the joy of it, for I could do nothing else. The sun was so warm, the air so refreshing. I drank the clear dew and the heavy rain. I breathed; I lived! I drew strength from up above. I felt a blessing; always new, always great. And so I always had to bloom. It was my life; I could do nothing else!’