This week, I had planned to write a post about the lost art of the pronoun (ever heard of subjective, objective, possessive case?) and the travesty of their misuse–“Her and I went to the movies” or “Jane and me saw it, too.” Would you say her went, or me saw it?

A useful post, maybe, although I doubt it would counter the rapid decline of the language.

But the Boston Marathon bombing happened, and today, Friday, the tragic, frightening events continue. I lost my will to write anything as frivolous as a post about a pet peeve, but I couldn’t bring myself to write a piece about the tragedy, either; others have already done it well.

Then I saw the Wordsmith Studio photo prompt for this week, and I thought, yes; that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go out in the yard and photograph a few flowers, as the prompt suggests.

What do flowers have to do with tragedy? Not much, maybe, except that they remind us there is beauty in the world in spite of evil. That the seasons come round and the earth renews itself in spite of the awful ways we treat her or the unspeakable things people sometimes do to each other.

So if you need a pronoun refresher, I suggest you visit the Purdue Online Writing Lab‘s excellent pronoun primer.

Right now, I hope you’ll enjoy these blooms and let them lift your hearts a little.

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What gives you comfort when things seem out of control?