‘Then do you want us to go gather the weeds?’ Jesus replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.’ Matthew13: 28b-30a
In high school I worked as a groundskeeper on a family owned and operated golf course. The owner’s son and I were mostly responsible for keeping the course well groomed, the greens in good shape, and the sand traps well raked. On occasion, however, we were tasked with weeding the flower beds and boxes that adorned some of the tees and the Clubhouse. It would be an understatement to say that weeding wasn’t one of my boss’s favorite tasks. His approach to weeding gardens and flower boxes was to get it done as quickly as possible. “All we have to do is make it look good for my sister,” he would say. And he offered two axioms to guide our work: The First: “If in doubt, pull it out.” The second was like unto the first: “If it don’t look right, yank it out of sight.” One thing was certain, we could weed a bed of flowers in record time and have the gardens looking “perfect”–well pleasing in his sister’s sight, in short order.
At least that’s how we saw it.
There’s no telling how much innocent chlorophyll stained our hands.
Weeding can be a dangerous activity: an exercise of judgement, bias, control; a violence against what one sees as out of place or unknown; things unrecognized or believed to be wrong. Perhaps this is why Jesus suggests that weeding be left to angels–to himself, the master gardener. Let the business of growing and bearing fruit be ours, the work of weeding be left to divine love.
I am taking the next two weeks away from the Diocese to nurture the garden in my own soul. Patricia and I are traveling to Rochester and Sodus Bay in NY to spend time with my children and our granddaughter, Piper, who is now 17 months old. We are also looking forward to spending time with my parents. We haven’t been together since Christmas. While it might not necessarily be a “quiet” time away, we know it will be peaceful, refreshing, joyful and bear much fruit.
