Weeding

Since moving into the Manse, I have been introduced to a whole aspect of being an adult which is new to me: Gardening. Something which is such a big part of many people’s lives, the thing which brings so much joy to so many people, and the thing which according to the bible was humanities first occupation as they were invited to join in with God as He brought order out of Chaos, is now something that I do too. Well okay, to say that I garden might be a bit of a stretch, maybe akin to suggesting that someone who makes beans on toast “chefs”, or a toddler playing with Duplo bricks “engineers”. Most of what I do is weed. And truthfully, even that is a stretch – mostly it’s removing the grass that seems determined to grow in the middle of my driveway until I can no longer tell where the driveway ends and the lawn begins. Yes, that’s right, when grass lawns the country over are dying, my grass is somehow thriving in the middle of concrete!

For all of the exhortations of how great gardening is or the masses of romantic poetry extoling gardens, I cannot think of any which praise the discipline of weeding. It is not glamourous. It is hard work. And it is needed. I would be very much lying if I didn’t say that it feels like an exercise in futility. Seemingly, no sooner have you done it, than it needs doing again. And well, that makes the whole thing seem pointless. But it isn’t. Imagine that I just gave up on the war on weeds – even for a little while. Before long the driveway would be lost and the plants I want to grow would have been killed by their competitors! What’s worse is that recovering the situation would be a mammoth task. What was a monotonous routine chore would be turned into overwhelming struggle to be feared. It might feel like nothing is being achieved because things are only being kept as they are, but that’s much better than the alternative.

The garden is rich ground for bible analogies, from Jesus talking about mustard seeds to Paul talking about the fruit that the holy spirit produces in our lives (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). As a child I once asked my mum how she knew which plants were weeds and which weren’t. “That’s easy”, came the reply, “weeds are just plants that are where you don’t want them”. Using the bible’s precedent of thinking of life as a garden and all aspects of our lives and our character as plants, the idea of weeding one’s life is a helpful thought. If I show no intentionality in nurturing my life or my character, I can quickly find my life doesn’t look like I want it to, and that my thoughts and actions don’t reflect the person I want to be. But if I’m careful to tend to my thoughts and actions, stopping myself from the things that take me away from being the person I want to be, I cultivate fertile ground for the holy spirit to shape me.

Recently my mum visited and when asked what she wanted to do with my morning off, I was surprised when she suggested tending my front garden. I have to confess that I actually found it quite cathartic and nice to spend time with my mum. But there was one more thing – there were things that I wouldn’t have noticed without her and other things that required the two of us to achieve. I think this probably applies to the art of “weeding our lives” too. That I need to invite close people to share my life and help shape it in order to come closer to becoming the person I want to be. May God send kind gentle gardeners to come help me!