BROTHER FLOATY BLOSSOM

Brother Floaty Blossom is probably my closest friend. He has his own story, and it’s a good one, but I think it best that he should tell you himself. Over to you BFB.

Hello, I’m Brother Floaty Blossom (or BFB as Wingle calls me). It was the custom in my family that one son enters the Order of the Ascetical Arum and so, being the middle son it was determined that I should be the one to take holy orders. The Order centres around a medium-sized flower in which God resides. According to Scriptures, the Ascetical Arum only blooms every 100 years, but truth be told, it’s more like every ten or so years. I have learnt not to let facts get in the way of a belief system.

The Order is only open to men – I don’t know why – and we start our training from a young age. We are known as “Brother” until we undergo the Glorious Epiphany after which time we are called “Father”.

Every young Brother is given a sacred Ascetical Arum seed upon entry to the Monastery, which he plants in the Monastery garden. The Ascetical Arum blooms for one night only and then, we are taught, it ascends to a higher plain (in truth the whole plant shrivels and dies as the morning sun rises). It is a strange plant but who am I to question The Ways of God?

​Each young Brother must tend his plant, not just physically with water and fertiliser but also through dedicated worship by way of prayer, hymns and Scriptural recitation. Those Brothers whose divinity fails to thrive only to ascend prematurely are deemed unworthy of the Order but are generally retained within the Monastery to work as servants. There is always a good supply of servants as, truth be told, the Ascetical Arum is rather a delicate and finicky plant.

I was, it turns out, a very good gardener as my Ascetical Arum grew to be the biggest, strongest divine plant anyone could ever remember. There was much anticipation that its blooming would reveal God’s messages to his people, in abundance, on how they should live and worship their God.

I will let you in on a secret. When I was tending my immature divinity with exact amounts of water, manure from the cow pastures and squishing any unenlightened bugs that dared profane the Divine, I started a discourse with it (which was admittedly rather one-sided). While I was meant to be intoning prayers, reading aloud Scripture and singing hymns of praise, I was instead asking all manner of questions. I asked why It (God) had decided to manifest in a flower that (supposedly) bloomed only every 100 years. I asked why this particular flower and not others (are not all flowers equal?). I asked what it wanted of me and, even more sacrilegious, I asked why It wanted to be God and not just a flower. These were all questions I had previously put to my teachers in the Monastery in my earlier years and they had been answered with a stinging birch across the back of my legs and weeks of penance cleaning the latrines.

On the day of Blooming, the Brother is required to stay in constant attendance next to his Ascetical Arum (this could mean days, or as in the case of Father Eye-of-the -Storm 2 weeks) neither eating, drinking or undertaking other bodily functions. Smart Brothers pack food and water under their cassocks and the Fathers turn a blind eye to the suddenly much chunkier Brothers heading off to their vigil.

Each Brother must not take his eyes off their opening Divine Bloom. When the Bloom is fully open the Brother gazes in to the Heart of God wherein a revelation will be revealed to him. This is the Great Epiphany, after which the new Father will be named (eg to Father Meatfree Friday it was revealed that the eating of meat on Fridays was not in accord with God’s wishes).

So, when my time came to commune with the biggest Ascetical Arum bloom that anyone could ever recall, what was my Glorious Epiphany? What was revealed to me? I stared and stared into my Divine Bloom. I watched the snowy white sheath unfurl; I stared into the deep red throat of the flower and – nothing!

So, when it was my turn to chant in reverential tones of awe what the God of the Ascetical Arum had revealed to me, all I could stutter was “I saw blossom floating on the breeze”. Well to say that I was a disappointment is an understatement. There had been such high hopes for my Epiphany. The Fathers were nervous as they remembered all the irreligious questions I had raised when I first entered the Monastery. Maybe I wasn’t worthy of God’s recognition but the flower had opened to me, so I had technically gone through the Great Blooming, albeit with a disappointing Great Epiphany.

So, I became Brother Floaty Blossom, not a fully endorsed Father but not a servant either. And it suited me as it meant I could continue to work within the community, offering support, guiding the lost and generally, being useful to the villagers. Fathers, on the other hand, dealt only in lofty spiritual matters and left the Brothers to administer to the congregation.

​And so I stayed in the Monastery, supporting and caring and engaging with people. I had learned to stop asking question (except in my head) as my religion was supposed to have provided all the answers I needed. I learnt that where all the answers are given, there can be no questions. But still my mind filled with all manner of questions: why does God embody a flower? Why that flower? And why is that flower considered more divine than any others?. As much as I desperately wanted to accept all I had been taught, the questions just kept coming. I felt I was being punished.

Then one day, Wingle washed up on the beach and my life changed forever. I helped nurse him back to health after he nearly died in the sea. I taught him our language and learned his. We would spend hours talking about all manner of things. Then one day he started talking about his home and I couldn’t help it – I asked him questions. He talked about all things from his home. Like a thirsty man’s need for water, he needed to hold on to the memory of his home, and I drank it in with him.

​One day, I timidly asked if he worshipped the Ascetical Arum. He was greatly bemused but listened quietly as I explained our religion. He, in turn, told me about a plant from his homeland called a Titan Arum that only bloomed every ten years. I was excited to learn of this, until he told me that when the Titan Arum bloomed, it emitted a rather disgusting odour. He was sure that nobody worshipped it and most kept their distance. Then, he asked questions. Similar questions to those that I asked in my head. A dam burst, I couldn’t hold back the deluge and we talked and talked.

Wingle was not religious at all. I didn’t know that there was a choice to be religious or not, but he explained that where he came from there were many religions, many Gods, many beliefs and many who didn’t believe.

Wingle became my best friend, my confessor but never my judge. So, when he left to return home, I went too. So, here we are, sailing the sea, Wingle to all that he knows and thought lost and me to all that I still must learn.

I’m still Brother Floaty Blossom. I don’t necessarily believe in the Divinity of the Ascetical Arum but I do believe that belief in something greater than oneself can be a great comfort. So that is the role I see for myself. To help people. To let them know that they are not alone. There is always a light in the darkness. There is beauty and wonder in every flower. And if we wish to call that “God”, then so be it..