The Blooming Cactus
Nostalgia delights my soul.
Rewind to 2006.
A simple word experiment.
A casual conversation about names and nicknames.
A common exchange between 14-year-old high schoolers in search for identity discovery.
Diana Park. Piana Dark. Add E in the middle. Voila, PIEANA!
Who would have known it would stick with me for eight years?
It turns out “pieana” was not a random invention, but a divine intervention.
When I searched the word, here is what I found.
I was speechless. A cactus with a blooming flower?
My mind immediately returned to a recently discovered knowledge about the nature of cactuses.
We all know that cactuses are desert plants.
But what I didn't know before is its tenacious capacity to hold its internal water supply through the duration of its life.
The purpose of a cactus is to bloom. However, it is a final act before its death.
It holds the water with all its might - then in its last days, it releases the long stored source of life, and leaves its final mark with a beautiful flower.
While the majority of its life is spent as a stubby, thorny desert plant, its final glory is in its flower.
Now read the definition of the catus, Eulychinia saint-pieana.
The name comes from the greek “eu” meaning “good” and “lychnos”, “lamps”, thus a good lampstand. The "brevi" bit refers to the appearance of the flowers which just barely peep out from a nest of fur.
PIEANA not only represents a blooming catcus, but also a lampstand.
Both imagery evokes an abundance of life pouring out from dry grounds and dark atmospheres.
These illustrations reflect the truth of Life that set me free:
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).
This is my starting point.
PIEANA is not your everyday blog.
My vision is to cultivate this into a platform to speak Life.
The Life exuding from the Truth that set me free and bring dead things alive.
To offer everlasting water to the thirsty. To shine penetrating light to the lost.
Welcome to my journey. Here is to PIEANA!
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls,
because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland,
to give drink to my people, my chosen (Isaiah 43:19-20)