SIN IN MY DRIVEWAY
When we bought this house in 1992, it had a nice asphalt semicircular driveway through the front yard, from Green St to Blackbourn St.
It was flanked by a nice row of cherry laurel bushes between the driveway and the front yard.
Through the years, the bushes became unmanageable so we allowed them to became trees.
Grass started growing through the asphalt…just little spots at first, then larger and larger patches.
I had to mow the driveway.
People visiting the new nail spa next door were blocking one of the entrances to our driveway.
“Why don’t you kill that grass so they can tell where our driveway is?” Wendy asked. “I have a recipe for a homemade “Roundup” that I found on Pinterest.”
So, last week, I mixed some up, filled my pump sprayer, and sprayed the whole driveway.
Sure enough, that evening I looked out there, and the grass was a dead, dead brown.
I planned on getting it out of the driveway the next weekend.
When it arrived, (the next weekend) the green grass had returned. I had to mow it.
“Honey,” I said, “I need to pick up some more vinegar and Epsom Salts to spray it again. Heavy, this time.”
So, Saturday morning, I doused that driveway (well, the side that the people were parking in front of) and, when I got back from church on Sunday, it was dead, dead brown.
“After lunch, I think I’ll see about scraping that off the driveway so it won’t grow back,” I told the Bohemian Beauty, thinking that might get me some brownie points. (What exactly is a brownie point?)
“Oh, you’ll need to plant those three cone flowers we bought Friday,” she replied.
I began to worry what this “day of rest” was about to become.
After lunch (some call it Sunday dinner), I got my wheelbarrow and a couple of flat shovels to start cleaning the driveway.
The sparse patches were pretty easy…the big patches, not so easy.
The sun was hot. A small plane circled overhead. I wondered if small planes like that have air-conditioning.
I haven’t finished…not by a long shot.
I did learn something, though.
If I had, over the last 26 years, snipped those little sprigs of grass off as soon as they poked their heads through the asphalt, we would still have a pretty decent drive through.
But, since I didn’t, this grass kind of moved in, got comfortable, and remodeled.
Sort of like, when I get a little bit lazy about the need for discipline in certain areas of my life…
And I take a few short cuts…
Or procrastination becomes easier and easier…
And I think, yeah, we can probably do better…next week…
And the connection to my God just starts to get a little bit fuzzy…
A little bit blurred…
And the whisper that keeps reminding me gets a little bit quieter…
And the roots that don’t get stopped early, go deeper, and take a lot more effort to remove.