Even the tiniest seeds of creativity planted in the rich, fertile soil of one’s imagination can grow more fully each year for a lifetime. I know this is true in my life as I reflect on the time when my mother lovingly cultivated a rose garden in our backyard. Nine rosebushes shaped a square, with three bushes in three lines. The fragrance was alluring to her three rambunctious children.

“Don’t play around my rose garden,” she instructed my brothers and me many times as we scampered about. “Roses have thorns that can prick you, and I want you to enjoy seeing them, not knocking them over!”

And so, a sort of reverence developed in our thoughts about