Gethsemane Prayer Garden
Faith Chapel, Syracuse, NY

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Purple Coneflower

The crowned glory of the mid-summer garden is the purple coneflower, abundantly proclaiming itself with simple daisy-shaped pink and purple flowers. The disk, which is the spiny bronze-brown "eye" at the center, appears insignificant when compared to the brightly colored rays, which are the purple whorls that radiate out from the center like a child's toy windmill. As the disk or "eye" hardens, the effect is a head surrounded by petals in a crown shape, similar to a crown that might be placed on a worthy king.

Like the crown of the purple coneflower, Scriptures encourage us to pursue a "crown of ...
This teaching continues in the book, entitled "Patient Endurance."

Excerpt from A Garden of Love, copyright © 2009 by Thomas B. Clarke, 82 colorful pages, $19.95. By interweaving a depiction of flowers and the Scriptures, this book attempts to illustrate how flowers such as the purple coneflower can inspire a Scriptural application of love. Thirty flowering plants are presented – each photograph was taken in the Gethsemane Prayer Garden.