Weeds
One summer some years ago I went to war with crabgrass. Denise and I had just bought a beautiful little country house with four acres of land in Paragould Arkansas, and I wanted a lawn worthy of the setting. I spent hours researching environmentally friendly ways to grow a Bermuda grass lawn and set to work, confident in the internet’s promise that once I got the thing established, it would basically care for itself.
But there was another reason for my lawn mania. I wanted to engage in a project that promised results. Pastoral work is inherently long-form, shaping souls bit by bit while knowing you might never see the fruit of your efforts. And the narrow four-year window in which campus pastors operate makes it even worse. Rarely do I get to see the process I start all the way through to full maturity.
Remaking my lawn, however, was a tangible goal with a definite timeline. It would take about six weeks for the Bermuda to establish roots. Until then, it was a matter of watering and waiting and pulling weeds.
it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.
By the end of June, I was still watering the dirt, but the only thing that seemed to grow were giant clumps of crabgrass. I pulled them by hand, dug them with a shovel, hacked them with a hoe. No matter. Without my permission, the Bermuda grass ceded the lawn to the crabgrass, letting it stake its turf before quietly taking root in the rare patch of unclaimed ground.
When I complained to my microbiologist friend David, he shook his head, sage that he is. “If it’s green it’s grass. Let it grow.”
On one hand, David was speaking as an environmentalist. The kind of lawn I’d envisioned was not going to happen in the soil where I lived unless I pumped massive amounts of fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide on it. The result would not be worth the impact it had on the land and wildlife around our house.
But he was also sharing a personal ethos with me. We have to work within limits. Some weeds are invasive and need to be eradicated; others are just part of life. If you spend all your time trying to get rid of crabgrass, you’ll have none left over to play catch with your son.
Don’t try to be perfect. If it’s green, it’s grass. Live on your yard, not for it.
We left that house nearly a decade ago for climes that, thankfully, aren’t quite as conducive to crabgrass. But weeds are like bad drivers—they follow you wherever you go. And it’s not always easy to know what to do about them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about weeds lately, thanks to a host of institutional and relational dynamics that have come my way. We seem to live in constant conflict these days, the whole human project thrown into chaos by people who stoke division, make power plays, and spin wild narratives to fit their ideologies. I keep hearing from friends who are hurt or discouraged or outraged by what’s going on in their families and churches and workplaces and schools. They get angry at the people responsible for high toxicity levels, and they want to do something about it.
Believe me, I empathize. I have my own list of weeds that need to be pulled. I suspect most of us do.
But there are weeds, and then there are weeds. As a child, I remember watching kudzu take over pastures and trees and old barns, choking out native lifeforms. I can see how big issues like systemic racism and economic injustice and environmental pillage take over and destroy everything. Some weeds can’t be ignored.
Other weeds, though, are not worth the time and effort. My best efforts won’t bend other people’s behaviors to my moral aesthetic or ethical sensibilities. We will have to learn to live together—or at least coexist—because trying to get rid of one another will only destroy us both. I can’t carry the anger that every injustice deserves. That’s for God to sort out, Jesus reminds us. We mortals would wither in a day.
I don’t always know what to do with weeds, large or small. I wish I had more wisdom to offer. I think the best I can do is to say wield the hoe judiciously. We each only have so much energy to spare, and we need to save that for the big fights.
Otherwise, if it’s green, it’s grass. Let it grow.
