Holy Ground...

...and it's all holy ground. It's all living ground, and I don't have to be a "New Age tree-hugger" or a Native American shedding tears in 1970's commercials to know it. I should have learned it almost 2 millennium ago when St. Paul wrote:

19 For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Romans 8:19

Then, again, I should have learned it when modern writers like Walter Wangerin write:

"The spirit of this race is fully capable of the sin that does not love its own environment, but makes itself a god to be satisfied, and makes of the earth a sacrifice the gods devour. The spirit of this race is well able to justify the slaughter--first because it doesn't confess that the earth is alive, so there was no slaughter in the first place...The race, did I say? No, not all the race. Those presently in power, perhaps; but not everyone lacks humility and reverence. Therin is hope." (from the article, The Farmer at Eighty-Eight.)

The earth is alive, the earth has its own longings, its own voice; and we indeed fail to hear--for so long now that we don't even know we ever had the ears to hear. Now it is the voice of cracking ice caps and hurricanes and earthquakes, but even before that. it was a still small voice, and we didn't hear it.

Take the case of the common mallow weed.

This is its season to bloom.

And so we google to see what to do about this weed as it looks to mar the uniformity of our lawns, and we read:

Cultural Practices: Weekly mowing and low mowing heights will help prevent infestations of mallow. Dense turf stands resist mallow invasion, so good turf management is key to controlling this weed.
Herbicide Use: For optimum control make your postemergent herbicide application to mallow that is actively growing and in the seedling to flower stage of growth.

http://www.weedalert.com/weed_pages/wa_common_mallow.htm

But if we were to allow mallow to have its life and its dream and its song, would it say anything worth the loss of our uninterruptedly level and groomed-looking lawns? I saw a t-shirt advertised in a newspaper flier the other day: "I fought the lawn, and I won." The first time I saw that shirt, it followed more closely (and more humorously) the pop song that gave it its form: "I fought the lawn, and the lawn won." I wonder what the lawn thinks when I replace my old version of the t-shirt with the new one as I march out on its dew on a Saturday morning, a warrior looking for a fight. We look for so many of those now...fights. Even the grass under our feet serves for enemy. I'm sure it wonders what it did to inspire such an attitude.

Personally, I think this weed does have a song worth the loss of lawn-control.

Here is how it sings:

"The leaves of the mallow weed, as those of many other plants, follow the movement of the sun's light, turning with it as it moves across the sky. More unusual is the mallow weed's reaction at sundown. As soon as the sun sets, all the mallow weed's leaves turn around and face the east, where the sun will rise in the morning." (from Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts.)

If we were to allow mallow to have its life and its dream and its song, if we "remembered" its story and gave it reverence above our own infernal desires to subdue (even a small patch of ground if that's what it takes) and show that reverence to our children, we would learn that the earth is not our enemy, but is surprisingly a wise and beneficial teacher, but we must be so attentative and caring and sacrificial to hear its lessons. For a living metaphor of all creation's patience is locked up in this one little plant.

And what would that story be?

Hope and its answer from God, retold to the world, every single day.