Mother Nature

 "Cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field." (Genesis 3:17b-18)

Deb was in Florida with the youngest daughter and grandkids this last week. Which meant I was getting some honey-do projects accomplished in her absence. 

When we first bought our house last November, I couldn't really tell if the siding was white, black, or green. Original color. Mold. Mildew. The neighbor's vinyl fence on the north that separated our property was the same mystery. 

We were blessed to have new windows put in last week so the time had arrived to give the house and driveway a nice pressurized bath - a 2000 psi washing. The unveiling. Just what is under all that grime?

As I washed I was thinking about how the curse affects me constantly. Every week I am mowing grass, trimming branches, killing ants, chasing destructive gofers, pulling down invasive vines, spraying weeds that are coming up in my new rock landscaping, killing ants (did I say that already),etc. I am on the look out for branches that have grown to the point of poking my eyes out and for whatever dead or poisonous plants have found a home on my property. 

My neighbor, Ron, who knows all things neighbory, was watching me do all things to battle the curse and he said, "Imagine if we just let things go for five or ten years. Mother Nature will always have her way." 

Mother Nature. Not sure where that term came from but it's not endearing. We hardly ever speak of her except when there is some sort of environmental calamity. Don't mess with Mother Nature. She represents the brokenness of our world, not the old lady with a plant growing out of her hat and all the wild animals cheerfully playing together and feeding in her backyard. 

Truth be told. Those critters have eaten all of her flowers, destroyed her garden, and are eating each other in a evolutionary feeding frenzy. 

I thought about this. My little house would be solid green or black. Trees would completely cover my roof and vines would creep into every crevice that could be found. Weeds would completely take over any rock surface, driveway, and even roads. 

All we have to do is look at societies that died out, where no human life pushed back against the tide of broken creation, to see how nature will take back what we have stolen from her. I would be living in an ancient Incan city where people from the future would come and discover the long lost city of Logansport. 

But then I reread Genesis 1-3. The curse was connected to the sweat and fight it would take to do what actually we were created to do. In reality, Adam was created with "Gardner," "Caretaker," as his job description - pre-Fall. Pruning and mowing the grass by moving goats around, transplanting flowers, cultivating the soil so nutrients could get down to the roots - all of this was a joy. 

Even today when you see a well-landscaped home or golf-course, when you see a well tended park or even cemetery, you see more than a person pushing back at the curse but an affirmation that man was created to care, to beautify, to appreciate, to create as well. 

All I know is that I have a internal satisfaction at the effort put into mowing the yard and pressure washing the house, and seeing my roses bloom in clean landscaping, and getting black soot off of my driveway. 

Doing what I've been created to do or at least until I get too old and have to pay the neighbor kids to do it. Until then, my fight against Mother Nature and black ants continues.