Out with the old, in with the new
{Alternately titled: making sense of tedious labor}
Currently I’m sitting in our eating nook looking out at my hard-working husband, friend and father as they labor in the back bed of our yard. It’s a project that we’ve been chipping away at for awhile, and especially this weekend.
What grew in the berm before were what my husband likes to call “weed trees,” but perhaps would be better titled “trees from down under.” Likely purchased because they are (A) incredibly cheap and (B) incredibly fast growing, these trees look deceptively healthy and pleasant. However, they are also incredibly malicious. They send a vast and shallow and extensive root system throughout the yard. These roots not only create a hazardous and bumpy landscape, but also send up tiny shoots of mini evil trees all over the yard. We’re talking little forests of trees that grow to at least six inches in between mowing. Sure, with constant surface level maintenance, the insidious effects of these trees can mostly be hidden, but we knew from the moment of purchasing the house they would have to go. As painful as it is to cut down mature, tall trees, we knew that in the long run we’d be much happier with them gone.
The actual cutting down of the trees was quite quickly taken care of in a couple hours on one afternoon (largely due to the efforts of a skilled former farm boy that Jeff works with). While this task was visually the most dramatic, in terms of amount of labor, it was nothing in comparison with what was to come.
We hired a stump grinder, and then set about to the real work. There was river rock to be cleared (a tedious job done handful by handful as it was sifted from dirt and debris). The berm had to be leveled. Rocks dug out of the soil. Huge roots dug up, hacked at and removed. A clearing out of the old, so that new trees with new roots could flourish in the area. Granted, you could probably plant some new trees without doing this clearing, but with all of the obstructions down below, those would have no chance of thriving.
The work has been hard and the hours days have been long and I cannot count the number of times my husband has commented, this is taking much longer than I expected. Just when work seems to start flying along, a huge boulder is discovered…I just watched the crew unearth what must be at least a two hundred pound boulder.
I took part in the tedious river rock removal…but boulder digging and root hacking? Not exactly a feasible nor an appropriate activity for this 8.5 month pregnant body. However, as I sat for hours on Friday and hours on Saturday removing handful after handful of river rock, I began to muse about what might be the spiritual gem hidden within the activity. Call it a coping mechanism, but when confronted with a somewhat repetitive and unpleasant task, I tend to begin a search for the gospel hidden within it. I firmly believe there are traces of this story of all stories within much of life, and as I sifted rock, I sifted for its message within the dirt and the rocks and the roots.
And it didn’t take long before I began to reflect on the roots and rocks of unbelief that lay buried in the landscape of our lives. We can put on a pretty good show, look quite mature and put together, especially with enough external upkeep and maintenance. However, below the surface we all have layers of unbelief. Rocks and roots and disease that send up constant shoots of anger, or impatience, or discontent. When contemplating the labor it would take to fully eradicate this deep buried unbelief, it’s easy to see the temptation of more surface level maintenance. It is so much easier and so much less time consuming and so much less back-breaking. And yet, as we seek to plant the gospel in our lives, it will fail to flourish in soil that is invaded by unbelief. And so we take out the axe and shovel of the Word and community and Spirit and we set to work. The more obvious patterns of sin and disbelief may quickly and easily be felled, but their roots? Oh how often we will comment, “this goes deeper and is much harder to uproot than I thought.” The task is by no means glorious. It’s dirty, tedious, long and laborious work–however, work that becomes more tolerable and feasible when tackled in community. And the result? A life of fruitfulness? A heart in which truth flourishes and grows? So worth the effort.
Looking forward to showing the fruits of this labor in the coming weeks. Hopefully before the baby comes.
WOW. When you think (while the labor goes on outside), you REALLY think. THanks for this reminder. I will think on this as I root out weeds and roots and rocks in my own backyard. THanks, Katherine!