Opinion

Seeking a foothold

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

The loading dock at the Gazette is inset, allowing big rigs to back down to the deck of the paper storage area. We receive approximately 55 700 pound rolls of paper each month, so the dock is a necessity. As an added feature, it also provides a catch basin for rain water and loose soil. During our recent dry years, it hardly mattered, however, the generous rains of 2007 provided enough soil and water to allow for what I have dubbed the "Gazette Garden" in the catch basin. It's an ambitious title. There is but one solitary plant. However, it looks more and more like a giant tumbleweed with every passing week. I've kept my eye on it. After all, having spent many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon as a child on road trips through the high country, I'm used to seeing a tenacious pine clinging to a granite-faced canyon wall, defying all of the odds, and I wanted to see how determined this species was. It's doing well, even against the inevitable truck traffic.

It seems seeds are not all that particular about where they are planted. Cast about by the wind and water or taking flight with the birds, they fall to the earth and, given the slightest bit of encouragement, seek a foothold and hang on for dear life. Sidewalks around town are a prime example as are the rogue trees that take root in my flower beds, destined to be plucked and cast aside on the next weeding. (I wish the tree we planted five summers ago would show the same level of enthusiasm. It hasn't died, at least not yet, but it seems to take everything it has just to hang on each summer. Undoubtedly it needs something I'm not giving it.)

The ground around here doesn't stay bare very long. When we were preparing to put our buffalo grass in, we first had to deal with years of established weeds. Dutifully poisoning them, we then tilled the soil, applying a second and then a third application of weed killer, barely leaving enough time between the final application and planting day. Even after all of the prep work, as the grass seeds began to sprout, so too did the weeds, once again seeking to reclaim lost ground.

We carefully trod on the newly sown ground, plucking the obvious weeds hour after hour, giving the desired grass a chance to become established. Even now, in its fifth summer, weeds still plague the grass, and if I'm outside for more than five minutes, I'll have a handful of pulled weeds to discard. They are relentless, but they are losing the battle.

A little dirt, a little rain, some summer sunshine and seeds will grow. And if you're not selecting the seeds, nature will provide its own. Good seed, sown in good soil, reaps a bountiful harvest. Wild seed, wildly sown, reaps a harvest as well.

For many years in this country, we gathered a bountiful harvest. Honor, duty, respect and self-control brought in a harvest of strong families, the establishment of good schools, good neighborhoods and an envious reputation in the whole world. And as a society, we kept the wild seeds at a minimum, pulling them out before they had a chance to take root and ruin the harvest.

Not so much anymore. The erosion of absolutes has resulted in the erosion of honor, duty, respect and any measure of self-control. Seeds of greed and illicit pleasures have been sown and have choked out the bountiful harvest leaving us with wormy, stunted fruit. Families are fractured, we send our children to schools with little confidence that they will return safely home and we don't even know our neighbors anymore. We have become the world's favorite whipping boy, held up as an example of licentiousness and debauchery, and, if the headlines are true, deservedly so.

Sunshine and rain fall on the just and the unjust. The choice of seeds, however, is entirely up to each one of us.

"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life." Galatians 6:7, 8 (NIV)

Things you won't see in heaven:

Weed killer

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: