Mullein

“It is with men as with other things.
The mullein needs only a year, but the oak a century,
and the greatest men are those who have continued to grow
as long as they have lived.”
~Robert Green Ingersoll~

You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
Matthew 5:14 ESV

Mullein bears as many monikers as applications. Perhaps among its most striking resemblances, though, would be one as a light bearer, symbolic of an inner voice. Today, we might think of fireworks when we hear the term Roman candle, but from a historical standpoint, it was the Romans who used the dried stems of the skeletal third year mullein as a torch or lamp wick. Being in the fall season, this is most typically what we see now in our corner of Wisconsin, although if you look carefully, you will see first year seedlings laying low to earth.

Tall and imposing, second- and third-year mullein stands out like a leader, a “light” among the meadow flowers, yet its resourcefulness yields to uses as humble as tinder; nothing is wasted. Isn’t this just like a good Father? Even if you are feeling little faith, hold fast to his gentle promise that “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged…” (Isaiah 42:3-4a). Even in my discouragement, He is not discouraged but willing to blow my small embers to shine brighter for Him.

Our lives are as the mullein in terms of brevity, just as Isaiah prophesied:

“All people are like grass and all their faithfulness is like
the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall…
surely the people are grass…
but the word of our God endures forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8

Peter echoes Isaiah’s cry with the preface that our light does not burn out and perish like tinder, if we have a grounding faith in God.

“Love one another deeply, from the heart.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God.”
1 Peter 1:22b-23

In this broken world, there will be those things that deter us from shining our light. Ailments like migraines and mucous congestion can snuff out ambition, energy, and resourcefulness. As an expectorant, mullein tea can help expel mucous from head and chest colds and deliver relief to migraines. Studies are rather opaque as to how mullein benefits migraines, but let its antispasmodic attributes speak for itself with a cup of mullein!

“God prepares leaders like a gardeners prepares the soil,
turning traumas and injustices to good use,
creating filth and fortifying further growth,
leaving nothing to waste.”
Shelley Cramm
My Father is the Gardener, p.80

Mullein Tea
2 tsp dried mullein leaf
1 cup boiling water

Steep 10-15 minutes, breathing in the steam of the steeping tea.