The Weeds of the Soul

When you’re out in nature and in a philosophical mood, it’s amazing how many moral and spiritual lessons you can get if you pay attention. I like to go out in the morning now and then and drop down on my hands and knees in the backyard to weed. It strikes me that the stuff we don’t want in our yards and gardens grows quickly and profusely on its own, and with no help or encouragement from us. That’s a lot like our personal vices: irritation, irascibility, lust, greed, pride, envy, laziness, and any form of harmfully addictive tendencies, to name just a few. We don’t decide to cultivate them, plant them in our souls and work intentionally to nurture them. They’re the weeds of the soul.

So, if we want a nice landscape, we weed. It used to be that when I noticed a stray weed in a place I’d worked hard to clear earlier in the day, I got mildly frustrated. Now I just get busy. Weeds grow. The ones we don’t uproot today, we’ll pull tomorrow. You rarely get it all done at once. And I used to be overwhelmed seeing how many needed my attention in certain stretches of the back. Now I simply know my coming days will allow me to get out into nature again and do something needed, something that’s good. Plus, the exercise itself is its own thing, and beneficial.

It’s important for us to realize that the garden of our hearts, the landscape of our souls, needs similar attention and work. Every day, try to weed a little. And while you’re paying attention, also check on the good stuff. A little water here, some organic fertilizer there, and it’s heartening what a bit of care can accomplish. But there’s always work to do, which is not something to be regretted, or to sprout new weeds in your spirit, but to be embraced as a reality of why we’re here in the first place. The inner exercise itself keeps you sharp.

The Garden is vitally important in the Biblical narrative, and it’s an equally crucial metaphor in our own stories.