Vanity and Kentucky 31

A week and half ago, I invested the better part of three days getting my lawn ready for next year. That entailed mowing, thatching, mowing, raking, mowing, seeding and fertilizing. (Did I mention mowing?) Before I began, I bought a 32 count box of yard bags for all the grass I would thatch (or is that de-thatch) and rake out of the yard. When I finished, I had 3 bags left! I watered for three days, and then we were supposed to get rain. Perfect, right?

Wrong! What we got was a 2 day Nor’easter that dumped about 10 inches of rain on our area. Our backyard filled up with water to the point where I thought about going fishing. The standing water seems to have floated all the grass seed I go carefully had sown and has now deposited it in the lowest areas of the back yard… the flower beds! So next spring we’ll have no grass in the yard and I’ll be mowing the flower beds. I don’t think Jesus covered this contingency in the Parable of the Sower! But it does appear that seed in front yard stayed put, and with all the watering of the monsoon, it should produce 100 fold.

So what’s the moral of this story? I am tempted to play “the Teacher” and find a lesson of the vanity of chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes looks back on his hard work and says this--

22 What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23)

He had described a great many accomplishments earlier in the chapter, but I choose to believe that thatching his yard was likely implied there in verse 5, “I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.” (Of course, he talks about all of his slaves in the next verse, so we know who was doing the thatching!)

This morning I noticed the little patch of ground beside the door as you come into the church building. There is thick, healthy patch of brand new grass that has sprouted up on its own—without raking, thatching, seeding or fertilizing. That makes me feel so much better. “Vanity of vanity, saith the Preacher!” (Eccl 1:2).