We can probably all remember the day that we went to our kindergarten or
first grade class and the teacher taught us about the way that plants
grow.  She showed up with a bag of dirt, some paper cups, some seeds,
and some popsicle sticks. She gave us one of each. We put the dirt in
the cup, the seed in the dirt, our names on the popsicle sticks and then
placed our cups by the window. Somehow, much of what we needed to know
about life was in those paper cups. .. My thanks to Richard and Deedee
Stephens, and Teen Advisors of Columbus, for their encouragement to
write this song.

Flowers Were Made for the Field

A classroom of children all eager and bright,
learn a lesson in science, a lesson in sight,
only now do i see 'twas a lesson in life,
when we waited for flowers to grow.

Our lives in some ways are like soil and like seed,
like farms and like furrows and fields that we feed,
we live through our seasons and our winters of need,
till springtime says blossom and grow.

You can plant you a seed in a small paper cup,
the roots will grow down and the flower grows up,
it's safe by the window but that's not life enough,
flowers were made for the field,
flowers were made for the field.

We are tempted to stay where we comfortably hide,
we put on the masks that are tested and tried,
but a Voice calls us softly from somewhere outside,
come be a branch on the vine.

i look at your faces and think i can see,
a beautiful garden in bloom around me,
colors that wait to grow strong and be free,
that fear not the wind and the rain.

You can run from the fight, from the hot and the cold,
In your stay-the-same world where the climate's controlled,
But your roots are confined and your life has no soul,
Don't you long for the warmth of the sun?

You can plant you a seed in a small paper cup,
the roots will grow down and the flower grows up,
it's safe by the window but that's not life enough,
flowers were made for the field,
flower go into the field.

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