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I saw this today in the comments section at Rock Waterman’s blog: Quote:“God doesn’t plant lawns. He plants meadows. But we belong to a church that, currently, values lawns–their sameness, their conformity, the ease with which they can all be cut to the same height, watered on schedule, and replaced by new turf if necessary. (And against which it is easy to spot dandelions.) All organizations are limited in their ability to handle diversity, but our church seems particularly limited right now in its ability to cherish and nurture individuals as individuals–as wild geraniums, catnip, western coneflowers, or yarrow–not as identical blades of grass in a uniformly green lawn…Patience is hard, but I plan to still be here when the Church stops experimenting with lawns and refocuses on the garden which the Lord hath planted.”
From a Lavina Fielding Anderson piece:https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/079-24-27.pdf I suppose the point to be made, though, is that even meadows are hurt and benefited by certain plants.
Sounds like a really bad homeowner association. Our lawn is… well, it’s our lawn. I’ve lived by the motto “if it’s green it’s good enough.” It must look really bad to some people because we get door to door sales guys knocking the door to give us their pitch. I love their tactic: your lawn looks terrible, will you pay us to fix it? Not after you spent the last 5 minutes insulting my lawn. And yes, this paragraph relates to the subject.
😆 😆 😆 I don’t mind someone wanting a manicured, mowed, nicely kept lawn that gets rid of the wild and natural look. What I do mind is if the homeowner’s association is not changing and keeping up with the times of what is nice and what is best and what is good for the environment (everyone).
The problem is when my neighbor decides he wants the manicured, weed free lawn, and I want a meadow…how do we get along? Will my weeds constantly blow into his space? He doesn’t want that, hasn’t asked for that, has worked against that.
I think conflict exists naturally in the world, the church doesn’t create it, but the church is in the world and has to deal with it. I have a problem with how slow they deal with things because they think they are “right”.
I think God plants and nourishes both lawns and meadows, because different people need different things. I love the idea that God plants meadows – but I also recognize how self-serving it is right now for Waterman to limit God’s ability to plant lawns – and to have no mention of gardens.
I think it is HIGHLY ironic for him to condemn one form of limitation and assert a different form.
Sorry, I’ve edited the OP to make it more clear that it’s not Waterman speaking. I still come back to the idea that a meadow isn’t without its own tensions.
Thanks, Ann, for the clarification – and you are totally correct about the tensions inherent in a meadow and that meadows are hurt (and sometimes destroyed) by certain plants.
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