Sunday Meditation #20: Weeds Grow Again...As Do Souls

Some thoughts for this Easter Sunday, born in dirt and grown in pensive light...

I feel unqualified to speak in depth of the significance of Easter. Others know more, and have said it better. The commentary is too well known for me to illuminate it further.  Instead I will speak of rebirth on a small scale, the kind to be found in weeds and dirt, flowers and sunlight, on a rather ordinary Saturday.

My mind had been caroming about, never sitting still. A shame, really, on such a beautiful day. I flitted from chore to chore. I folded laundry, swept floors, caulked tubs. Yard work beckoned for the second day in a row. I finally could not take the confines of my house any longer and fled to the less claustrophobic setting of my backyard. It was white gold sunlight under a cerulean sky. The lessening of tension in my shoulders and gut were immediate, even as I drew on gloves and hefted the weed whacker.

The weeds were thick in the back planting bed, to my chagrin. I set the machine down, considered the thick mat of creeping plants that were threatening the little Japanese maple I have come to love. I bent down and with both hands began to tear at the runners. The crunch of leaves, snapping of twigs sounded oddly soothing in symmetry with the bird songs and wind. I pulled and clutched. I relaxed.

As I cleared weeds, I felt a lightening of spirit, wonderful and mysterious. The weeds I am sure saw no friend in me, but for the first time in a long time I felt no grudge against them. It felt good to clear, to uncover, to make things right. I finally understood that if the weeds were to have a purpose other than being a nuisance, it was to make me appreciate the joy of simple tasks with measurable results.  This rejuvenated me.

We can all rise again, in ways big and small, and it is perhaps the small ways that underpin our lives. I give thanks for the joy of small things.