Weeds

The other day I was out in my yard pulling weeds. It seems that lately it takes up much more of my time. As I was pulling them up, I settled into my usual routine of contemplative meditation and prayer. I would think a bit, then pray about that thought, then ponder it and roll it over in my head, and then pray a little more. Then I would repeat the process. I think that is one of the reasons I enjoy yard work so much. The work itself is not especially enjoyable, but being able to tune everything else out and focus, to meditate and concentrate on what I am meditating about, is something I really enjoy. And it is usually acceptable to be a little antisocial in this way.

As I was going about pulling weeds, I had an awareness, and suddenly a rush of thought and understanding flooded my mind. I know this experience. It is familiar to me, and it is invigorating. This was revelation knowledge. Straight from heaven. Thank you, God.

It started with an observation as I was pulling up some very large weeds. When I say very large, I know that is a relative term, so I will define it. In this case, very large meant sagebrush over three feet tall. After clearing a section of the yard of this unwanted brush, I dragged it into a pile. That pile ended up being about six feet high, twelve feet long, and five feet deep. Looking at it, I was excited to go back and see how much better my yard would look without those obvious eyesores.

I looked back at the area I had just cleared, took a deep breath, and expected to feel good about the clean, bare ground. Instead, I was discouraged. I immediately noticed something I had not noticed before. There were still weeds everywhere.

These were not the very large ones. These were what I would call medium-sized weeds, anywhere from about a foot to three feet tall. So I started in on those. As I cleared the same area again, I noticed something else. Beneath those were even smaller weeds. These are the most pesky ones. They frustrate me the most. They are hard to grab, and even harder to get up by the roots.

As I worked on these other weeds, I stayed in that same pattern of contemplation, meditation, thought, and prayer. I found myself wondering where all of these weeds had come from and why I never noticed them before.

The answer was obvious. They had been there the whole time. I had not noticed them because the very large sagebrush had covered them up. They were underneath. I would not even have been able to get to them until the sagebrush was removed. Once it was gone, the smaller weeds were exposed, and only then could I deal with them.

Something else stood out to me. The very large sagebrush had to be hooked up to my truck and pulled out. They had deep, established roots, but once they were hooked up, they came out easily. Roots and all. Ker-plop. Done. Gone.

Those small weeds were different. Sometimes it was hard to even find the root. I had to get down on my hands and knees, focus, grab at it three, four, five, sometimes ten times before finally getting it out.

After pulling the small ones, the yard looked good. I was glad I had taken out the sagebrush, because without doing that first, I would never have seen or reached the other weeds that also needed to be removed. The yard looked clean, and the evidence of the work was sitting right there in front in that large pile. Anyone could see it. “Wow, your yard looks nice. Did all of that really come from here?”

That moment clarified something for me. This is how it works in our lives when we want to change. We tend to notice the most obvious things first. After those are dealt with, we become aware of others that were there all along. They are all weeds. The frustration that comes when we see more work to do does not mean nothing has changed. Many times, the smaller things take more time and are harder to root out. Even noticing them means progress has been made.

If we thought we had to see and deal with everything at once, we might give up. But the smaller things only become visible because the larger ones have already been removed. They often are far more difficult to root out. If you are in the middle of that fine-tuning and find yourself discouraged, stop for a moment and go look at the pile. Look how far you have come and what you have conquered so far. You would not even be able to reach what you are working on now if you had not already done the work you did to get here. You are making progress.

Thank God for the progress. It is there, even when it does not feel like it.