never let anyone else cut your grass

I once heard a bit of advice from an old Lutheran pastor: never let anyone else cut your grass.

Once a week, maybe even on Sunday afternoon, mow it yourself, and edge. Trim around the trees and flowerbeds. Then sit on your porch, crack open a cold beverage, and just gaze at your lawn in all of its ordered splendor. And say, "I have accomplished something. It is done. I did it. I am proud of it. And now I can rest."

I laughed at the time. It was supposed to be funny, after all. But a joke with a ring of truth. There's precious little in this vocation that has the satisfaction of a job done. Most of it is seeds sown, or plants watered, or ground tilled.

To continue the metaphor, what we're about to do during our lenten series, starting tomorrow night, is fertillizing. Fertilizer smells bad, and too much can be dangerous, and it can be combined with other ingredients to create death and destruction. We're doing the sometimes dangerous work of examining and questioning something absolutely vital to the Christian story.

Tonight, my version of cutting grass was changing the oil in my truck. Insides cleaned and wiped down, outside washed, oil and filter changed, used oil stored in sealed container for delivery to recycling station. Tools cleaned and put away.

And then I just stood there in the driveway, in the dusk, gazing at the car.

Maybe the old man had a point.