Tag Archives: God

Who Does The Flowers For The Flowers’ Guy?

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Our little lives get complicated
It’s a simple thing
Simple as a flower
And that’s a complicated thing
– David J.

John Davis being fed by the same energy that flowers receive for their colors #buyflowers

Paul John Davis III  November 10, 1966 – November 15, 2021

— A question left unanswered. A void that cannot be filled. It reminds me of those minutes when great sculptors have died — who will do the master’s headstone? Or, in this case, who is worthy to do the flowers of the BuyFlowers’ guy? I wonder if John ever thought about it? Great artists often contemplate such things. That wasn’t very “John,” but if he did, he probably made everyone laugh when answering. I suppose the loving staff of John Davis Florist will do their finest flowers to date. Something very much symbolic and worthy of his incredible life.

Everyone knew that God — in a cosmic artist whim — gave John Davis an extra dose of joy in his spirit or sadness elixir personality. You could just look at John and know that. You can see it in every picture everyone has shared online, depicting his entire life span, since we all learned that he died just 5 days after his 55th birthday. To be honest, I’d not seen any photos of John as a child or younger man until this week, but in each picture, I saw those angelic happiness eyes always ablaze and smile to match. As a stranger, if you caught that kid staring at you like that you might really wonder what he was thinking or what drug he was on making him look at you that way. It could be unnerving if you aren’t accustomed to having a modern-day cherub gawking your direction. Odds are, John was just admiring in you a light you weren’t seeing or needed to be introduced to within yourself, and he was more than prepared to show you through words or flowers. It lived in him at a savant-like level. In the same way there are math savants and artistic savants, John was a “joy savant” with a bit of comic genius thrown in for good measure. You know how there are daredevils or rock climbers they say aren’t born with the fear gene, or whatever that is? John wasn’t born with that, either, but he had an extra happiness gene. And we wondered at him like we marvel at those rock climbers that seem to move so effortlessly.

I’m quite sure John knew what sadness and lament was considering his role as florist, but one probably would never dare accuse him of it. John didn’t have time to be sad or down. That wasn’t in his spirit let alone his vocabulary. He was too busy making sure he gave everyone part of the spark that God gave him, which he found in himself. He could better cure his problems by helping you feel better about your own. John wanted you to have some of the world he saw and experienced because it was so close to something divine, he felt bad if anyone might miss out. In fact, his own spirit insisted upon it and those who experienced him knew that as a fact. John took great joy in people around him. They were his aphrodisiac. He saw all of us as wildflowers, and in order to understand us, he needed to get closer. Or perhaps our flower was lost, and so he stepped in to put our mood in a better arrangement. Being a florist was merely the guise for it all.

I would offer, other than entreprenurial parallels, part of John’s and my personal connection, or perhaps, one he felt towards me originally, was his recognition for my doing creative things around cemeteries. Although, his customers certainly more modern, mine, being more historical. For a long time, I didn’t know, and may not have the timeline details completely correct, John began doing flowers in the back of his mother’s house after his father died in 1983. I’m unsure if he did the flowers for the funeral itself, but recall John saying his mother would ask him to take flowers out to the grave all of the time and he would do various arrangments, making them different each opportunity. He witnessed the happiness it brought to his mother and himself and John Davis Florist was born more or less — pretty special stuff.

John & dad, John Paul Davis, Jr #buyflowers

Painted by notable artist Leonard Miller #buyflowers

I cannot claim John in the way others can claim him for a lifetime, even if he was my friend, too, and I have known him for the better part of 32 years as this unique spirit in Savannah. I’m not sure where I first encountered him, except to say John Davis was most likely to show up in your life out of nowhere. I would routinely pass his shop, John Davis Florist, on Abercorn Street near The Cottage Shop,  and both seemed like such long-time institutions. So many of those have faded, you see. Granted, he was the new kid on the business block, but eventually, he earned that “Savannah” classification. I suppose a part of what drew me to John’s place was that our mutual painter friend, Leonard Miller , had worked on some of his early signage, and that was about as local of a statement as one could make. It gave the shop some added street cred, in my mind. I’d collected Leonard Miller’s art and signs, and it would be John, who years later, gave me the sad news Leonard had died a couple years earlier, which I somehow missed the news. He slightly mused about it, but only because someone like me — in my own sort of cemetery business– hadn’t gotten the memo, and John was simply laughing at the irony. But our Leonard had been a fellow joy savant, no question, and it seemed appropriate John would be the messenger. He felt bad, and no surprise, sent me flowers with a personal note that we’d both “lost a good one.” And we had. John was keenly aware of life’s many levels and playing fields, you see. To a stranger, from afar, he might be mistaken of simply being a goofball, aloof or maybe not a serious person. In fact, he’d find all of this about him, from me, a little too serious for his own liking. John wasn’t much to get lost in serious subjects, as I don’t think he was out to be a philosopher. But he was a quietly serious man and could grasp and handle any subject, or if it were too serious for him, he’d let you know that he wasn’t into it but was happy that you were and he meant it. That was kind of our dynamic at times. I think because I deal in history and death most of the time, I’m more serious than I’d like to be. But John was a reminder of my own helium voice and frustrated inner stand-up comic.

John hamming it up with dentist, Scott Cohen #buyflowers

Part of the world’s love for John Davis was his generosity at a whim. I recall when I was having a Grand Opening celebration of a store I was about to embark upon, I went in to order some flowers and balloons, and before I could even finish, John said he wanted to donate some of everything because he was just happy for me. How could I argue? And it may be a small thing, but when he’d see me, John would state my full name like “S-H-A-N-N-O-N SCOTT!” He’d say it with his cornball impish grin, but it was his way of acknowledging that you were a VIP in his life book. Always loved that. John Davis loved to make you feel cool. And for a moment you’d let yourself think, “Hey, maybe I am cool!” That was John’s spiritual flower power on tap.

John as floral messenger in a picture by John Alexander Photography #buyflowers

I may lose a few here, but I spend most of my days in cemeteries. When I’m not touring in them professionally, I’m walking in them for exercise and just exploring others. This is how I also stayed in touch with John Davis’ career. Call it morbid, but anytime I saw a new grave in my regular places, I’d go to investigate, and over the years, it has gotten to a point where I know a John Davis arrangement before I’m even at the grave, spying the maker’s name on the card! I always delighted in discovering I was right! I don’t know if I ever got to share that with John in a full way, but I’d garner to say that I became a strange brand of fan just from that perspective alone. Strange to note, but I’ll miss John for those, too. In fact, I walked up to a grave yesterday, just to peek, and of the many surrounding, none were his – end of an era. The last one I knew that bore his creative stamp was just a couple of weeks ago in Hillcrest Abbey East. The first sign of John’s touch were bright red, cherry-colored, shotgun shells looking like cattails mixed in with  pheasant feathers, poking up with sunflowers and rather unexpected, camouflage ribbons! Like to hunt much? It had John’s sensitivity and whimsy all at once. Like John winking up at you from the grave. Might be best anology of his style, come to think of it. “Winking up at you from the grave.” Kind of like that. Hope you don’t mind, John.

John Davis’ graveside bling #buyflowers

I don’t think I’m talking too out of school when I say it came as a gladdened surprise to hear John had found real love with his soul mate, Jen Abshire. He’d found the other rare flower, finally. John always seemed to exist in this light of being that was pure love. And such people seem to either never find it, feel they don’t need it, or abstain because it’s like a foreign subject, the idea of ever knowing a true opposite or equal. John deserved to have some of the earthly kind, and he found it in one of the coolest women to ever walk around in Savannah. I’d known Jen as a customer in a deli that I managed, and I knew she was a bright light like from the start. She became John’s “Jackie O” really. A total dream girl, through and through. John’s inner sunrays only grew brighter, frankly, and he never seemed as happy. He knew he was the luckiest man alive like never before and he was. I remember his excitement for the wedding, itself, and the planning like it was the greatest event he’d ever get to do. Knowing I was the history guy, he asked for my thoughts on the old Dorchester Presbyterian Church in Midway, GA as the setting, and told him I was impressed he knew about the hidden Low Country church and reminded me of why I felt kindred to him. All the same, the giddy schoolboy in love had totally come out, and I reveled watching it transpire and like always, felt John had made the whole world happier at the same time.

Upon learning of John’s passing, a friend and I hit upon the view that Savannah should be a mystical refuge from death, itself. That all the cool people like John should never have to die. They never really do, of course, because of the way we love them. But still, we needed John to stay longer — like forever. Because of John’s essence, I found myself remarking to a friend, Savannah was like this special ship with a particular crew that made it all work, and now without John it’s like the ship is lopsided. It’s just how it feels to me, and I apologize to John for sounding a bit sadder than he’d allow. The magnitude of John’s loss to his wife Jen, stepchildren, family, friends, not least of all, Savannah culture, is hard to calibrate, except to say no funeral wreath can contain the mourning flowers, and yet we feel John’s sunshine brimming just behind the sadness almost tickling our spirits. Something tells me we’ll all get flowers from him when we least expect it. #buyflowers y’all 912-233-6077

Where John & Jen tied the knot and where he’ll be buried near in Dorchester Cemetery. #buyflowers

In The Land of God & Gullah (Shannon Scott Quoted)

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In the Land of God and Gullah

God and Gospel meet African tradition in the South Carolina Lowcountry

BY  

“You sure you want to drive out there?” an 82-year-old farmer warns when I stop to ask for directions on a dusty, rutted road in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. “Ahead are the Gullah islands,” he says, shaking his head. “They’re a peculiar people with mighty mysterious ways.”

As I voyage over a gauntlet of bridges and down winding, sun-dappled back roads, past lazy pastures and homespun ma-and-pa stores, decades peel back as St. Helena Island, the center for Gullah culture, emerges through a gauze of saltwater marshes.

The descendants of African slaves, the Gullah today live mostly on the remote barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Neglected during much of the 19th century by their slaveholders — who fled the islands frequently for the cooler inland climate — the Gullah often governed themselves. As a result, they’ve preserved significant elements of their West African culture, such as their African-based Creole language and their expertise in sweetgrass basket-weaving.

But perhaps the Gullahs’ most enduring African legacy is their commitment to a spiritual way of life. “Church is more important in St. Helena, South Carolina, than anywhere else in America,” says Robert Middleton, an 80-year-old island tour guide, driving past a row of single-room churches under a canopy of moss-draped oaks.

As gospel music crackles over car speakers, Middleton, a deacon of a local church, says 90 percent of the people on St. Helena go to church weekly. An impressive figure, considering Gallup recently found only 42 percent of Americans regularly attend church.

The descendants of African slaves, the Gullah often governed themselves. As a result, they’ve preserved significant elements of their West African culture, such as their African-based Creole language and their expertise in sweetgrass basket-weaving.

“Like in Africa, we [Gullah] have always centered our lives around faith,” says Middleton, mopping his glistening forehead with the back of his hand on a sultry afternoon. For example, Middleton says, until not too long ago, the religious and community leaders of the island resolved most quarrels among themselves.

Middleton remembers an incident in the 1950s when two men involved in a shooting on the island were brought to the local Praise House — a small building used for local religious meetings — to resolve the dispute. When the shooter agreed to pay for the wounded man’s injuries, all was forgiven and the men became friends again. “The Bible tells us don’t go to bed angry,” he says, fishing for a key to open the small white clapboard Praise House.

“The Praise House back then was our community center,” Middleton explains, “where we regularly met, danced, stomped our feet and shouted out to the Lord. But today we have our modern churches,” he adds, standing alone in the quiet, century-old, hand-hewn wooden room, where he once attended jubilant services as a boy.

Middleton says that with God’s help, the Gullah culture will endure. “Our roots run deep here,” he says, stepping outside the Praise House, amid live oaks that have stood sturdy with the Gullah since slavery and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Gullah Grub

Setting down a bowl of crab soup and a plate of fried shrimp and shark with red rice, the ebullient Oshi Green, 28, says her family restaurant celebrates their Gullah heritage by serving traditional fare and offering a local hangout.

gullah-inside1

From the sweet-creamy aroma of fish chowder wafting from the kitchen to walls lined with colorful Gullah paintings and shelves boasting wooden African figurines, Gullah pride radiates from the Gullah Grub Restaurant.

Gullahs embrace an African culture that honors God by fishing, hunting and gardening, Green says, standing under a large painting of her father hunting. “Living close to the land has long defined African and Gullah culture,” she says.

But as the threat of posh golf courses and tourist-laden resorts closes in on the prize island real estate, many St. Helena residents fear the worst. “This has been our home for over 300 years,” sighs Green. A picture at the cash register says the rest: An African-American woman labors in the fields with the caption, “Gullah Heritage. We won’t give up our land.”

Green says African and Gullah practices often exemplify Christian principles. For example, barter not only provided for the Gullahs’ daily needs on the island during slavery and Reconstruction, but also underscored the Christian value of sharing. “Barter taught us to work together and look out for one another, because if we didn’t help each other, we would have perished,” she explains.

And today, Green says that sharing thrives not only in the churches of St. Helena — which often pool resources to help needy members — but also in the day-to-day life of the island. For example, Green says, when her family restaurant recently had a surplus of collard greens, they traded the excess with a farmer who had extra lettuce. “No money exchanged. It was a real barter,” she says.

Outside the wood-planked Gullah Grub, a grandmotherly Jery Taylor sits and weaves sweetgrass baskets the way West Africans have done for centuries.

Weaving baskets for over 50 years, Taylor says she puts a little bit of God in everything she makes. And it shows. Her baskets adorn the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and galleries throughout the South.

Taylor says the care she puts into weaving baskets stems from reverence for God and her ancestors: “Gullah pride weaves deep.”

Spirit-catching bottles

Outside the gallery, a steel-limbed tree decorated with blue bottles greets customers. “That’s a Blue-Bottle tree,” Smalls says. At night, she explains, daylight-hating evil spirits roam and take refuge inside the bottles, but when the sun rises, the evil ghouls are trapped inside, where the morning sun kills them.

“You can’t get too far from superstition around here,” Smalls says.

Across the street, Victoria Smalls, manager of the Red Piano Too Art Gallery, leads the way through a labyrinth of jostling, color-grabbing paintings of Gullahs laboring in fields, fishing and attending church.

Smalls says Gullah art is practical. “You can paint on a wooden shingle or on an old wooden door. This is art for the masses, not the elite.”

She says the shout — popular in Gullah art and literature — celebrates a vital part of Gullah spirituality. Similar to the African ritual of spirit possession, the shout happens when someone falls under the influence of the Holy Spirit and sings or moves ecstatically. The line between Christianity and African spirituality blurs here, she says.

Outside the gallery, a steel-limbed tree decorated with blue bottles greets customers. “That’s a Blue-Bottle tree,” Smalls says. At night, she explains, daylight-hating evil spirits roam and take refuge inside the bottles, but when the sun rises, the evil ghouls are trapped inside, where the morning sun kills them.

“You can’t get too far from superstition around here,” Smalls says.

Gullah can preach

Down the road, on a Sunday afternoon, hands clap, bodies sway and voices rock the red brick walls of First African Baptist Church on Olde Church Road.

“If you give to the poor and have not love—you have nothing,” the Pastor declares to a packed church of well-dressed parishioners, his mellow cadence building in fervor.

With shout-outs of “Yes, sir” and “Amen,” the congregation engages in a dialogue with their pastor, a holy duet, a back-and-forth repartee.

gullah-inside4

“Unlike white churches, preaching in Gullah churches is not a one-way lecture from pastor to parishioners,” says Shannon Scott, a local historian and tour guide. “Gullah churches — steeped in West African worship — are about getting a response from their worshippers, getting everyone involved, the community, the village.”

Working toward a crescendo, the pastor feeds off his flock’s nodding heads, swaying bodies and supportive yelps. “Salvation comes through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on Calvary,” he bellows. More hands clap, more shouts. “Jesus ain’t playing. No, he ain’t playing!”

Scott says the emotionalism of Gullah worship, rooted in traditional African religion, is about experiencing and feeling God — letting God touch you. “It’s not about being passive or overly intellectual like other churches,” he says. “The Gullah got spirit.”

Playing it safe

“That color is called haint blue,” says the old Gullah man pointing to the sky blue trim around a home outside St. Helena. “It scares evil away. My people still have plenty of folk tales, you know.”

The snow-white-bearded Baptist, who asked to be called Adam for this interview, says haint blue is a heavenly color, and evil haints [spirits] won’t have anything to do with heaven. “This comes straight from Africa.”

“It’s trendy now for everybody to paint something haint blue around their homes,” he says, sitting on a park bench behind a home with a bright haint-blue flowerpot in front.

Adam doesn’t put much stock in superstitions, though. “That’s just African folklore. Only Christ can scare away evil spirits,” he says as the glint of a bright haint-blue cross winks beneath his shirt collar.