It’s spring. Gentlemen and gentlewomen, start you mowers!
When we finally bought a house with an actual yard, I was excited about mowing.
Yeah, I got over it.
Still, if ya got grass, ya gotta mow, and that means:
- Ya gotta cut it often (i.e. before eagles build nests in it)
- And ya gotta cut it straight.
⇐ The first few times I mowed, it looked like this. I finally figured out I needed to maintain a straight line. But how?
Spotting.
Years ago I asked a ballerina-girlfriend how she kept from losing balance every time she did those amazing turns. “Spotting,” she replied. Dancers pick something to focus on, spotting it again each time they come around. This keeps them from flying out of control, and throwing up on their nicely dressed opening night audience.
It was worth a try. I began looking at shadows on the grass and in the bushes at the edge of the yard. The result was, well, not as bad as the zero-technique approach. But pretty bad, nevertheless. The problem was that the shadows were constantly shifting.
So I tried following my own feet.
Yeah, that was a disaster.
So I began focusing on permanent things. And on my point of destination. Things like trees and window shutters. Result? Straight, beautiful lines! I even managed to create some pretty patterns. Then one day, while I was mowing, it occurred to me:
What trees are to mowing, God’s word is to my life. Before entering a life of faith, I’d lived by focusing on either: 1) the constantly changing light and shadows of modern culture or, 2) Myself.
Yeah, that was a disaster.
God’s word (illuminated by his Spirit dwelling in me) became my Tree, my permanent, unchanging focus–my destination point. And this has produced a consistency, a purpose, yes, even a beauty that I would never have dreamed possible. If the old atheist>agnostic>seeker me could see the direction my life has taken since I learned to “spot,” he’d be…well, he’d be a bit confused because he wouldn’t know what I know (or rather Who I know). But I think he’d be excited, nevertheless.
More excited than I’ll ever be about mowing.
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” ~Isaiah 40:8
Let’s give it a 
Tom and I have been friends for many years, and I love him to a fault. Which is convenient since he regularly confesses his faults. He’s a sincere but weak believer who is sick of his own weaknesses and moral lapses, sick of himself, really. And he has been for as long as I’ve known him. I regularly pray for his progress, however gradual, but sometimes fear he’s stuck in the rinse-and-repeat pattern of: 1) feel bad about self, 2) announce to the world that you are human feces, 3) gather “you’re not that bad!” responses, 4) bolstered by responses, feel better about self for awhile, 5) repeat cycle.
