Weed Killer

Greg and I are lawn snobs. We love our grass. We mow it twice a week. We have an EdgeHog. We walk around at night looking to pluck any interloper attempting to root into our living carpet of lushness. We have always been this way. We just haven't always been this smart.

The year after we got our sod (2000) we spent every free minute after work ridding our grass of dandelions and tree shoots and this weird grass that came from the pond. It was torture. Greg bought a Ghostbuster backpack and filled it with weed killer and sprayed every individual weed. Once the weeds shriveled we manually dug them out one at a time with that forked metal stick tool. I recall we even drew an aerial illustration of our lot on graph paper and subdivided the lawn into 16 zones. We would weed one zone a night until the yard was perfect and then start all over again. In case it isn't clear, the point of this paragraph is we took major pains to have nice grass by focusing on weed control.

Three years ago we were getting a little jealous of our neighbor Neal's grass, even if he was cheating by fertilizing on St. Patrick's Day. He finally told us what he used on his grass: IFA's 32-3-8 mix. It comes in a 50# white bag with the numbers in a generic font and no images to persuade you to buy it. Holy cow. Our grass literally doubled and was the color of Oz. Funny, but once the grass thickened we stopped getting weeds. The forked metal stick is gathering dust in our shed along with my kneeling pad and MUD gloves.

Recently, at church of all places, a man told a story about grass. This man described a scenario like ours and noted that he was so frustrated with his problem that he called a landscaper friend to ask what the deal was with his weeds. The landscaper simply told him, "Focus on the grass and the weeds will go away."

I'm repeating it:

FOCUS ON THE GRASS AND THE WEEDS WILL GO AWAY

It's true. Once we forgot about our specific, individual weeds and spent our time and money doubling our grass, the weeds vanished. Such is life.

I have plenty of emotional weeds. I worry about my back. I worry about aging. I worry that we'll do IVF again and still not get pregnant. I worry about this rank sewage smell that intermittently wafts from our drains. I worry about sulfates and BPA and cellphone poisoning and all the margarine I ate in the 80s. I worry that I'll suck my abs in my whole life and never accept my lower half. I'm worried about my child maneuvering through technology and junior high and puberty. I'm worried about being proper and grammatical and gracious but I'm also worried that becoming good at something will make me prideful towards others in my heart. If I focus on my weeds enough I can make myself sick and sweaty with anxiety.

I could only handle so much sick and sweat until the light bulb went off over my head. I remembered the true story of our grass! I saw it thicken with my own eyes and I dumped twice as many mower bags with my own arms. I know that fertilized, strengthened, doubled grass kills weeds. And so I have been fertilizing and strengthening and doubling my emotional grass by focusing on the good cheer that I have been commanded to see and feel. I pray every morning and night for help to go with the flow and to not obsess about things I can't control. I remind myself daily that fear and faith cannot coexist and that fear grows weeds and faith grows grass. I stay busy with an honest day's work and by doing good works for others. I also find that endorphins, Vitamin D, dogs, the BBC, and laughter slaughter weeds.

Within the Church it seems like there are a lot of weeds people focus on; ones that popped up with the advent of the internet and spread even faster. Weeds can surprise you. I think it is wise to double down on your efforts of focusing on the Savior when a troublesome weed is overtaking your landscape. Focus on the Savior, and the weeds will go away.

Photo of my daughter and her friend's attempt at mimicking Andy Goldsworthy.