I took this photo on Friday afternoon while walking through the little village of Lemont in Central Pennsylvania:

I think this sort of natural beauty is vital for reorienting our often distracted hearts, reminding of what sort of things are truly delightful. A beautiful flower, in its arrestingly simple way, testifies to what truly matters. I think the flowers above fit with these Benedict XVI observations:

“Entertainment, in its proper place, is certainly good and enjoyable. It is good to be able to laugh. But entertainment is not everything. It is only a small part of our lives, and when it tries to be the whole, it becomes a mask behind which despair lurks, or at least doubt over whether life is really good, or whether non-existence might perhaps be better than existence.”

We can truly amuse ourselves to death, if we lose sight of the true goods of life.