Saturday, February 19, 2005

Weeds

I’m feeling better with a nap. I am trying to conserve my strength so I can lead worship tomorrow however silly it is to think one can hold on to energy and disperse activity at will.

The LH wanted to get out even though he is hacking and droopy. We went to the bookstore. I looked for book on forgiveness written by an author I couldn’t remember with a title I forgot. Oddly enough, I didn’t find it. I have the author and title written on a scrap of paper in my other purse so I’ll pursue finding it.

I wanted to find a book on common Southern weeds. As Spring begins to edge into the yard, the weeds are bright green meadows in my yard grass and flower beds. I want to know each little sprouts real name, where it originated and how to get rid of it. Not that I’m splashing herbicide on a square inch of our yard. I have cat paws to protect, birds to keep safe and ground water to keep clean.

Weeds fascinate me. Are they weeds because they are free in cost and unintentional? Is our orderly gardening to value what we plant and detest any visitors? Is what we grow cultural or what is in fashion or something other than love of growth?

It’s the growing habits of weeds which fascinate me. They are so durn intrepid. A weed will grow in a sidewalk crack in the worst situations imaginable and prevail. Unless a RoundUp spraying herbicidal maniac comes by.
Stubborn, hardy, ubiquitous, vital. All weed words. We have dollar grass which I assume came up here from Mexico and further South as I saw it in Mexico. It’s roots are like long boiled pieces of spaghetti. If you pull the roots up, you get more roots. Crabgrass has wonderfully deep roots, too. Johnson grass is difficult for me to hand weed as it is stuck in the earth so tightly that it resists my pulls. I may have the names of Johnson and Crabgrass confused. See? I need a book to tell me their names. I don’t even know the colloquial names for many of the weeds I see.

I can be stubborn like a weed. Makes me think of my sermon tomorrow on John 3:1-17 where Nicodemus comes to see Jesus at night privately unable to face the public. He recognizes Jesus as a miracle worker but doesn’t know where Jesus’ authority comes from. He doesn’t know Jesus’ name as an identifier with God. Can’t imagine it but knows something is going on. I imagine that Nicodemus’ struggle with whether or not to go see Jesus was a tortured internal moment. But he goes, stubborn but curious.

Are weeds weeds? Trash plants, irritants or another way of looking at plant life? Another way to look at life by looking at the undesirable or unvalued? Is my view or our view of Jesus’ authority based on values which don’t make sense? I’m not suggesting that Jesus is a weed. That’s too funny! Perhaps I am the weed or the weed holder as in a holder of ideas which are not valuable and can be replaced with better values.

Just thinking. How’s it with you?

P.S. This isn’t my sermon but everything relates to preaching regardless by Saturday afternoon. It’s on my brain.
I’ve completed the sermon until it’s next revision about 10 pm. tonight which precedes the 8 am. tomorrow revision which precedes the 10am. revision....

4 comments:

aola said...

I leave big spaces in my gardens that I call "my wild gardens" where I just let whatever comes up, grow. A lot of my weeds and wildflowers are the prettiest and most definitely the hardiest of all. In the fall I walk through the pastures gathering large containers of weed and grass and wildflower seeds to scatter around. My husband says that my yard is contained chaos.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

mark said...

I think it was Robert Fulghum who once said something about dandelions, and how they're beautiful flowers and hardy plants, but we consider them weeds because they grow where we don't want them, too. Make our lives inconvenient... Or something like that. I don't remember the exact words, although I do have a new appreciation for dandelions because of what he wrote.
Thanks for your words on my blog. I have been reading yours for the past few weeks, and so I was surprised when I saw your name in the comments on MY blog. I was a little thrown, at first, I thought somehow I had confused who was reading whose blog, but then I realized that was nonsense.
Good luck with your sermon, I just preached my first version of it this evening. Blessings!

Anonymous said...

I share your fascination with weeds. And I'm right with you on the stubbornness analogy, too. I really liked what you said about being the holder of weeds. I sat and thought about that a bit.

We have a few dandelions that sprung up at the edge of our grass on one side of the driveway. Drives my husband nuts (he takes care of our yard very lovingly himself and during the rainy winter he doesn't mow as often, so the dandelions grow). I park my car on the driveway and many days when my 6 yr old son gets out of the backseat he'll wander over and pluck a dandelion that's just right for blowing into the wind. Remember doing that as a kid? There is nothing so beautiful as watching a young boy drop his backpack and lunchbox after school so that he can joyfully interact with nature. Weeds, schmeeds. Those dandelions are worth every bit of the unsightliness at the edge of the lawn.



PS- Mark, I love so many of the same favorite music/movies/books you have in your profile.

St. Casserole said...

Nightwoodkitty, when your preacher says something very useful as your comment showed, please get it to me BEFORE my sermon is preached as I had not thought of that point. Good to hear from you.