Potted Plants

I saw him checking the potted plants.
I was waiting for a favorite poet/Anglican priest to speak at a church near me.
I got to the room early and sat in the third row.
A friend was the facilitator for the discussion, which was about the Sacred Imagination.

A man was doing sound checks and arranging microphones, since the talk would be recorded.
A young boy was very serious about the two potted plants that were next to the chairs.
He put his finger in the soil.
He fastidiously checked each of the plants.

It kept me quite entertained while I waited.
The young boy walked back and forth between the two plants.
As he walked away, he came down the middle aisle where I was sitting.
A woman on the other side of the aisle said something to him as he passed her.

She was apparently watching him as well.
I don’t know what she asked him, but I heard his answer.
They are fake!
I thought I heard him wrong.

I assumed she asked him if the plants were real.
His answer seemed absurd, since he was taking such an interest in the plants’ well being.
He walked by me and I couldn’t resist.
Are those plants real? I asked.

No, they’re fake! He said.
I had so many questions.
Why was he so concerned about the potted plants?
Why was he checking the soil that was not really soil?

From where I was sitting those potted plants looked real.
Watching the young boy give so much attention to the plants, I assumed they were real.
Was he pretending?
Was he just trying to be helpful in some way?

I thought about the plants as I sat waiting for the speaker to arrive.
How many people walk around like those artificial plants?
How many people look as if they are growing in good soil?
How many people keep up a facade, when all the while, there is no real life inside them?

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.