I live with a person who finds it very difficult to accept the gift of a compliment.  He will downplay his role in the experience or banter about the stars being aligned or me needing new glasses.  I see the same tendencies at times in his brothers.  I know their mama told them not to be prideful, for nobody likes a boastful person.  Pride is at the top of the list of the seven deadly sins and is synonymous with conceit, egotism, and vanity.  C. S. Lewis called pride ‘the spiritual cancer’ which blocks love, contentment, and even common sense.  Yet pride has many definitions–from ‘a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority’ to ‘pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself’ or ‘the most flourishing state or period.’  The later two definitions sound like a good thing!

I took this photograph of a Dragonfly at the beginning of July.  He rested on the Perennial Pink Salvia long enough for me to run back into the house for the camera.  There are so many things I love about this picture–the see-through stained glass of his wings, the one brown patch near the tip of each wing, the long segmented tail, his huge, multifaceted eyes, and how he is holding the opening flower blossom with his legs.  Dragonflies are carnivorous, eating their own body weight of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes in just thirty minutes!  They fly forty-five miles per hour, can move in all six directions, can hover like a helicopter, and only flap their wings thirty times per minute (compared to 1000 times a minute for a housefly.)  These acrobatic flyers need to keep their flight muscles warm, so will bask in the sun to warm up.

I’ve sat with this photograph for over a month now.  It didn’t seem to fit in with anything else I was writing about–not even the Gleanings post.  Then it came to me: this photo, this Dragonfly, was a gift!  And my next thought was: I accept this gift!  With great gratitude I contemplated capturing the images of deer, birds, the little fox, insects, flowers, trees, water, and all of Nature’s beauty as a gift to me that I can pass on to you.

Dragonflies symbolize change in the perspective of self-realization, change that has its source in the understanding of a deeper meaning of life.  I’m glad Chris is not boastful or egotistic, as that kind of pride is destructive to relationships and prevents us from knowing the truth about ourselves.  Yet I urge my humble husband to accept the gift of my compliments with a simple thank you, to feel the satisfaction and pleasure of it.  How many gifts are all around us that we don’t perceive, receive, and accept?  Whether it is a Dragonfly, Grace, a beautiful Lily, Mercy, a spotted Fawn, or Love, let us accept the gifts of our lives so that we may live in a most flourishing state of being.