PERMANENT WEED KILLER

Where I grew up in Bassfield, Mississippi we had a big yard. And I mowed that yard----- with a push mower.

Oh from time to time Pops would buy a so-called self-propelled mower to “help me out,” but when the propulsion gears got clogged with rich south Mississippi dirt (And the propulsion gears always got clogged.  Where’d they test self-propelled mowers anyway, in a parking lot?).  Anyway, when the self-propelled mowers stopped propelling themselves they became much heavier push mowers. 

I pushed that entire yard spring, summer, and fall.  If I didn’t get up early when it was cool, Pops would say, “I bought you a hat didn’t I?” and I’d mow that whole freakin’ yard in the Mississippi sun.  For some reason my parents didn’t discover  riding mowers until I moved out of state for college.

I hated yardwork.  Still do.

But back then on a Saturday under 100 degree plus sun while my friends drove by blowing their horns and waving, I hated the grass in that yard with the kind of seething, personal antipathy that teenagers usually reserve for other teenagers.

So one day, when Pops left me alone at noon with instructions to mow the yard because I should have gotten my butt up while it was still cool----- I sprayed the entire yard with diluted diesel, and then I sat on the steps of our trailer and watched the grass die.

It was BEAUTIFUL.  The blades of grass shrunk and curled in the sun.  The tall seeded stems drooped and seemed to slide back in to the earth.  It all turned this beautiful winter brown, first in spots were the droplets of diesel fell, but after an hour baking in the oven that was Mississippi the diesel basting turned the entire yard an even shade of beautiful, beautiful, dead, not needing to be mowed brown.

I started this story to make some deep point.  Where was I going with this?

Oh, yeah. 

The grass grew back.  The mowing started all over again.

Around this time,  in Sunday school, we were studying the Judges (as in the book of Judges), and I read Judges 9: 45.

And Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city, and slew the people that was therein, and beat down the city, and sowed it with salt (KJV)

Our Sunday school teacher explained that salt kills the root and the makes it impossible for anything to ever grow on that soil again.

I put my fingertips together, leaned back in the pew, and said nothing, but in my mind I was laughing, “Bwaahahahaha!”

No.  I didn’t spread salt on my parents’ yard.  I was frustrated not suicidal.

But I nurtured a vision, a dream that one day I would leave that place and build myself a big house. 

And I was going to pave the entire yard, and every year I would go outside and fertilize the pavement with salt just to make sure that NOTHING GREW.

However, we built our house in a planned subdivision and both the housing covenant and my wife prohibited that type of landscaping.

All this time though, I’ve remembered the growth killing power of salt.

Hebrews chapter 12 urges Christians to “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.”  The author wants to prevent us from “[falling] short of the grace of God” and becoming “defiled.”

Now (and here’s the connect to my grass-cutting rant), the passage tells HOW Christians fall short of grace and become defiled.  It tells how we fail to pursue peace and holiness.

“lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble”

We get angry.  We feel wronged.  We have moments of envy, jealousy, wrath, lust, etc., etc.  Yes, WE, as in we CHRISTIANS.  But, we fight those sinful feelings.  We turn from them, rebuke, push them down, pray them away.  We stop, get ahold of ourselves, and breathe.  We cut off, or shall I say, “We mow down,” the weeds of sinful thinking.

But the grass always grows back.

Just when you think you’ve conquered your anger, “That chick said what?”  Now you gotta crank up your spiritual engine and cut back your emotions again.

It’s exhausting.

What you need is a way to kill the root of bitterness so it can’t spring back up to cause you trouble.

You need SALT.

And you have some.  More specifically, you are some.

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13)

Fertilize your emotional landscape with your own spiritual salt.

How?

Colossians 4: 6.

Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. 

Salt your emotional ground with what Paul had previously advised in Colossians.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  (Colossians 3: 12-14)

Spread your spiritual salt all over your emotional landscape by being good to people---- to all people.

My grandmother and the women of her generation all seemed so calm, so centered, so sure of who they were, so at peace with their choices and circumstances.  It was Zen-like.

Now, I remember them singing to themselves.  When their men or their children or their circumstances got out of line, they would cook, or clean, or do whatever was their normal task for the day, and they would quietly hum the old hymns, and sometimes ad-lib Bible verses into the lines.

It was Zen-like. 

It was genius.

It was Scripture.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. (Colossians 3: 16-17)

Spread your spiritual salt by praising God---- in all situations. 

Hum those hymns and gospel songs.  Treat every assignment and task as a chance to glorify Jesus.  Thank God---- for everything.

You’ll kill the roots of bitterness, and one day you’ll look out and realize that you don’t have to trim the edge off your anger anymore.  The bitterness will be dead, dried up from the root.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful (Colossians 3: 15)

You’ll be living the dream.

---Rev. Anderson T. Graves II   (email:  atgravestwo2@aol.com )

Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

Subscribe to my blog at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com  

Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves