Yesterday Kristine and I were cleaning out our basement when she smelled a gas leak. Turn out the seams between pipes fitted not-so-long ago when we got a new furnace are loosening up, and the pipe dope is wearing out. The gas company man we had out yesterday said it had probably been that way for long time. Yikes.
Soon we'll have a repairman out, at Sunday rates, to seal the pipes up. That's the downer part of the weekend.
On the up side, we finally hung doors in the basement closets we started building three years ago. I also got a lot of trimming and pruning finished around the yard, and resumed my war on sweet clover out in the native plant meadow.
I'll continue that campaign today, along with planting pumpkin seeds and sunflower plants. Fitting, I guess, as today is the 6th Sunday of Easter, also known as Rogation Sunday. On this day, blessings on land, seeds, plants, and labor in the earth are asked. Obviously this was a more momentous occasion when many people made their living through agriculture. Today, at least in many congregations, it likely serves to highlight a sacramental dimension in a leisure activity. Which, I think, is still a worthy purpose.
Considered in the context of this, my gardening activities provoke some questions. If the produce of the land is a blessing, why should I feel so compelled to rip up creeping charlie, sweet clover, or chickweed? What is particularly blessed about imposing my agenda on the fragment of earth along my back fence? In a way, I may not be so different from people who wish their yards to consist of unadulterated Kentucky bluegrass, even if they're seperated from Kentucky by a long plane ride. I could say in my defense that creeping charlie is not native to this continent--but then, neither is my family. I could say these species diminsh the beauty of my garden, but that's purely subjective, and might well be countered with the observation that creeping charlie and chickweed have documented medicinal value.
I don't actually have moral, aesthetic, or spiritual reservations about weeding. Establishing my meadow is simply one reasonable option among many that I might choose for managing that part of my yard. I won't say that it's morally superior to other options, but I'd like to think it does serve a kind of sacred purpose in that it returns to the view of anyone who sees it a measure of the diversity this part of creation once had. It whispers, there is more to this place than you're apt to see or think.
Or might anway, with a few more years of cultivation.
Speaking of things religious, this morning our rector quoted both Kurt Cobain and Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection in her sermon. I think this must represent some milestone in postmodern homiletics.
Tags: Housekeeping; Gardening; Spirituality
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