G is for GRASS

My wife thinks I'm obsessed with grass. Not the kind that people smoke of course, but the green stuff that surrounds our house on all sides. In fact we live on an island, surrounded by a sea of grass and, during the summer time, I have to dive out, metaphorically speaking, into the great unknown and keep it under control with my trusty lawnmower and strimmer. I've told you about my lawnmower before but my strimmer has seen better days. Now entering its fifteenth year, I begin to wonder if one measures the age of a strimmer in the same way as we count the years of a dog's life. And it's certainly been a dog's life using it, for no other mortal has attempted to assist me in my travails as man and machine swept all before them, including nettles, thistles, docks, long grass and now, as it nears its retirement, short grass on the borders of my lawns. But how faithful it has been, even though my care for it has been less than attentive and the throttle is held on by a piece of string and is now operated by twisting the grip handle to tighten the wire - how ingenious is that? But back to the grass.

I suppose I should be thankful for so much grass. Even when I look beyond the lawns, I discover that we are completely surrounded by fields of the green stuff and on a still, summer night, I often listen to the sound of cattle quietly munching their way up the paddock towards the drinker. On other summer days, the air is filled with the smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of harvesters, tractors and trailers cutting and piling it up in silos all over the countryside. I've had my fair share of that too, mowing grass shortly after the first light and drawing trailer after trailer 'home' to the farm before monotonously rolling the whole heap with a tractor for ages to squash out as much air as possible and so improve the quality of the silage.

I suppose wife has a point though. I do mow the lawns rather often, probably every seven days or so, but any good lawn keeper will tell you that it's easier and quicker to mow if you keep the grass reasonably short all the time. And of course there's nothing nicer than getting out into the fresh air after a day inside at work and just following the old mower round and round the plot. I reckon everyone who mows their lawn has a set pattern or order of doing it, which they think is the quickest and best but no matter how we mow, there is always that great hindrance of having to empty the bag or box every few laps. But that is of no greater annoyance than the fact that in our present changing climate, the summer mow can now extend all the way from February or March right through to November. Thank goodness for December and January! Do i sound a bit obsessive? Well I'm not finished yet. Our lawns consist of two main areas spread around the house. The main lawn was created just after we built our dwelling. I remember well it being levelled, all the stones being gathered from its surface and slightly below and the sower going out to sow handfuls of seed over the whole area. The other lawn, at the rear, just sort of happened over the years. It was once an orchard and just by continually cutting at it and eventually removing the remaining tree stumps, it became an area of short grass and was eventually incorporated into the bigger picture. But the two lawns are totally different in the way they grow. The back lawn grows much more quickly, is made of courser and tougher grass and there are few weeds anywhere between the blades. In contrast the original lawn, sown with the best of seed, has much finer grass, has surrendered certain areas to weeds and is now fighting a losing battle to the advancing armies of the great warrior called 'moss' and as any keen gardener knows, once moss gets a hold it is very difficult to shift.

It always reminds me of the story of the sower and how even good seed, when it sprouts, can have its growth choked by other things so that it eventually withers and dies. But it also tells me that I am responsible for my own spiritual growth and if I allow other areas of my life to become too important or to get a foothold, eventually they take more and more of my time and my life and God is squeezed into a corner. Jesus tells us to 'Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.'

When I look at my lawn from a distance it looks lovely and green and nobody would suspect the damage that lurks beneath the outer appearance. It is so easy to not notice the change from afar and even us as individuals often fail to see how we are less fervent than we once were for God. I have found that mowing is never enough to remove the offending plants and likewise regular church attendance and being at the prayer meeting doesn't solve our spiritual dryness. The only thing that cures is to weed out what is causing the problem. Time to get down on our knees!