On Mowing and Marriage and Trying to Be Like Jesus

July 17, 2016April 30, 2021 / Apple Hill Cottage / 8 Comments

There’s very little in this life that I like less than mowing grass. Reasons? Oh yeah, I got plenty:

What a waste of time — I could be gardening, reading, writing, washing dishes, mopping the kitchen floor…

What a waste of gasoline and added pollution, when we could be growing food, or flowers, or sheep instead of grass…

Grass has no value whatsoever, unless one is playing golf…

Why would I want to push a horribly noisy smelly machine that could easily cut off my fingers, or my toes, or throw flying sticks or rocks at my head?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

iris

Usually mowing the grass is Mr. H.C.’s job and I don’t have to think about it. But he’s busy doing the roof while the sun shines. (July in Pennsylvania makes watching the Weather Channel unnecessary; we know what the forecast will be: 90 percent humidity and scattered thunderstorms.) And the grass has to be mowed when the sun is shining too. Plus, the tractor is broken. So I’m being the selfless servant and mowing the grass with the push mower.

Right. Not quite so selfless as one might think…

Today as I started mowing, silently congratulating myself on serving my busy husband, he came down off the roof and waved at me to stop. When I stopped, he bent down and raised the mower deck on me. “You’re cutting it too short,” he said. Then he disappeared back up onto the roof.

Excuse me? If I am cutting the grass I will blimey well cut it at the height I want. The shorter the grass, the less it has to be mowed. I’d just as soon kill the wretched grass anyway. That’s the trouble with it, grass doesn’t die. Its roots live forever and come back to haunt you next year after you’ve planted a lovely flower bed there. But I digress.

I confess to being sweaty, hot, and bothered. Muttering the whole time, two passes later, I stopped the mower and lowered the deck back to where it was. But that still didn’t make me feel any better. Here I was — unselfishly mowing the grass so he wouldn’t have to — and he comes to tell me I’m doing it wrong? What kind of ungrateful man is this anyway?

Oh wretch that I am…

I’ve heard enough sermons in my life to know that this is not what Jesus would do. And I’ve also heard enough John Dorean sermons to know that the goal of every Jesus lover is to grow and be more like him every day. Of course, we fail all the time, but that is the goal…

So when I stopped to take a break and get a cool drink of water, I sat down on the couch and picked up the book I’ve been reading. Sacred Marriage. (If you know this book, you may laugh here.)

I had a copy of this book once, but we were newly married and I ended up giving it away to someone before I read it, and I never got it back. Since then I’ve read sections of it, and heard sermons from it, and I know the subtitle by heart — What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More than to Make Us Happy?; but I’ve never read it cover to cover.

Turns out, maybe I should have.

I always thought, yeah, yeah, I know what Gary Thomas is going to say. Die to your self. Respect your spouse. Love unconditionally.

And yes, that’s what he says. And yes, it’s hard. And as Thomas says–none of that comes naturally to us.

But as I sat there reading Chapter Six, “The Cleansing of Marriage: How Marriage Exposes Our Sin” I knew. I knew that those words needed to penetrate my soul. Just as I need to die to my Self a hundred, no, a thousand times a day, I also need to desire humility a hundred, no, a thousand times a day.

Of course, we always see our spouse’s sin; it’s so much easier to see other’s sins, isn’t it? Yes, this specifically refers to taking the log out of our own eye before we take the speck out of someone else’s eye (Matthew 7:3-5). Listen to this:

View marriage as an entryway into sanctification — as a relationship that will reveal your sinful behaviors and attitudes and give you the opportunity to address them before the Lord. But here’s the challenge: Don’t give in to the temptation to resent your partner as your own weaknesses are revealed. Correspondingly give them the freedom and acceptance they need in order to face their own weaknesses as well. In this way, we can use marriage as a leg up, a piercing spiritual mirror, designed for our sanctification and growth in holiness.

I needed to re-read that sentence: Don’t give in to the temptation to resent your partner as your own weaknesses are revealed. There it is: the basic sin of all sins–Pride. Lack of humility. Thinking that I know best, yet knowing in my heart and soul that I do not. It’s ugly, pride is. Later Gary Thomas quotes François Fenélon who wrote: “…all the saints are convinced that sincere humility is the foundation of all virtues.”

To grow in holiness marriage must be understood as a spiritual discipline, Thomas says. “To do this,” he writes, “we must not enter marriage predominantly to be fulfilled, emotionally satisfied, or romantically charged, but rather to become more like Jesus Christ.”

There it is again…to become more like Jesus; and to do that we must put on our robe of humility and not throw it off each time we get hot and bothered. And not only do I agree with Fenélon that humility is the foundation of all virtues, but can I suggest that pride just might be the foundation of all sin?

Today as I was reading an article about the need for us to feel awe before our holy God, I came across the term self-forgetfulness. How I longed for it. The author, Jen Wilkin, cited research that suggests when humans feel awe they are better able to forget themselves and reach out to other people. And I started wondering–what else makes me put on self-forgetfulness?
Blue sky behind gray clouds Doing something for someone else with no expectations. (Remember mowing the lawn? It went wrong because of my own expectation–that my husband would be pleased and thank me profusely for doing something I hated to do.)
Praying–talking to the Holy God of the Universe — yes, that’s one that definitely gets the mind off oneself.
Thinking about Jesus–whether it is reading the Bible, listening to worship music, or just meditating on how weak and incompetent I am, and how strong and competent Jesus is for me.
So here we have: Go watch a sunset or the clouds or stand on a beach or a mountain; Make dinner for your neighbor; Read your favorite passage in God’s word and thank Him for it; Meditate on the strength of Jesus and your own shortcomings and feel awe that you are so loved.

As I read further in Sacred Marriage, this paragraph jumped out at me:

Don’t run from the struggles of marriage. Embrace them. Grow in them. Draw near to God because of them. Through them you will reflect more of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And thank God that he has placed you in a situation where your spirit can be perfected.

And today, in the sermon I heard this: He loves us where we are at any given moment. Certainly He invites, encourages, challenges us to become more like Christ, but that becoming is not a prerequisite of His love. Can I get an Amen?

white clover

It’s time to mow the grass again…

The tractor is fixed. As Mr. H.C. took it for a mowing spin to see how it was running, he said, “I’m not going to mow the grass very short, because there are lots of bees on the clover, and I don’t want to mow the flowers away.” Yeah, he knows how much I like bees and clover…

I smiled to myself. Thank you God that you have placed me in a situation where my spirit can be perfected.

And thank you God, that the tractor is fixed.

B.I.C.S. (Blog Identity Crisis Syndrome)

March 12, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 21 Comments

My blog is having an identity crisis.

Note: Not me. I’m fine. It’s my blog that’s come down with the B.I.C.S.

You see, I started this four years ago to chronicle the journey of rehabbing an old cottage. Is it finished? No. The bathroom still needs a total gut; the extra room that will be a guest bedroom/office is still unfinished; the garage, the back porch, and the roof all need attention. But life here is the real life now. It’s no longer a dream of someday we’ll move there. We’re here. And it’s day to day — you know — working, eating, praying, loving, serving, writing, reading, learning, talking, listening.

One hundred and eighty posts later I’ve been struggling with the foolish self-importance issue that seems to be an egregious habit of the human race. (Watch the debates much?) And then my blog whispered to me the other day, and…

well, that just brought things to a head.

Yes. My blog told me just three days ago that it’s feeling out-of-focus and left out.

What’s my point? it whined. I used to be about the cottage. With some DIY thrown in. And then you started with those photo/poems — I hope you don’t have any illusions about your photo skills. You just have an iPhone and you can’t compete with real photographers, you know.
I nodded.
And you’ve put up some recipes, but you’re just a half-decent slow, messy cook who sometimes doesn’t feel like cooking at all.
I nodded again.
Then sometimes you write about faith and Jesus. You know, you lose people immediately as soon as they read those first lines.
But, I said, I’m not ashamed of Jesus.
Just sayin’ the blog answered. And sometimes you write gardening posts, but you’re just a homestead wannabe. No chickens. No bees. Just some fruit trees and a small garden.
Suddenly I was feeling bullied. Hey, I said. I write you. Don’t tell me what to write about.
Maybe, I should — all that bookish stuff — get real, get into the 21st century.
I am in the 21st century, you simpleton, I said. (Yes, it’s pathetic to resort to name calling in an argument with your own blog.) I’m writing you on my Mac and sending you rocketing off into cyberspace.
Well, it said self-importantly, if there’s no point, why send me rocketing off? Why not just keep a diary of the weather for yourself? Or write on that silly novel of yours? You know there are bazillions of blogs out there — why do you think anyone wants to waste their precious time reading yours?

And then my blog went silent.

And I was left with anxious thoughts. No one really wants to have a fight with their own blog.

Maybe I could change my theme, I thought. Make things look a little different around here?

No answer.

That’s how we left it. Uncomfortable silence.

So until one of us learns some humility, I’m taking a break. Studying the clouds. Weather patterns.

It’s not a divorce — just some time apart. And I’m sending my blog to counseling so it can figure out what will be good for its soul.

Updates, Schmupdates: or, if it ain’t broke, do an update

January 20, 2016February 26, 2016 / Apple Hill Cottage / 11 Comments

I’m old.

Old enough that I don’t always like to check my age category, because it’s too far down on the list.

Old enough that my time left is precious, and I don’t want to spend it re-learning what I thought I already knew.

Old enough that I believed the lie that technology is supposed to make our lives easier and simpler.

Lately, I’ve been fighting technology, and it’s wearing me down…

First there was Windows 10 on my office computer. Now I have to put in a password every ten minutes when the screen goes to sleep. (Is that why it’s called Windows 10?) Oh yes, I’ve set and reset the settings. Ten times at least. The screen is not supposed to go to sleep — ever. But there it is, every ten minutes it starts snoring. Does exactly what it wants. I think I’m going to start calling it HAL. (Proof that I’m old.)

Then there was the new iOS on my iPhone. Now the blue tooth in the car just circles around and around, and I can’t play the music that is on my phone. I used to be able to do this… And yes, I’ve uninstalled my phone and reinstalled it. Three times. Nothing. No music. I’ll have to go back to CD’s I guess.

Then there was El Capitan on the MAC. Yep, the wireless printer stopped working. This is actually one of the success stories, because after uninstalling and reinstalling the printer three times, it has finally started working again. But my new writing program Scrivener — advertised as El Capitan ready — has frozen repeatedly. It is frozen as I write this (which is why I’m doing a blog post instead of writing on my novel).

And then there is the WordPress update. For a year now, they’ve been telling me to switch to the improved posting experience, but I’ve always been able to get around it. Because the old way of posting had commands right at my fingertips. Easy. Visible. But today I tried to get in the back way, and BAM, the new dashboard is the only one to be seen. I was beyond frustrated…

New and improved rarely means improved. It means frustrated and irritated, which quite frankly, I don’t need in my life. Is there anyone who does?

cat and computer

I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve turned off automatic updates. I’ll just have to put up with those annoying little numbers on the App Store. And those banners on the Mac that make me feel like I’m way behind the times? I’m blind to them.

I can take it.

Because, yeah, I’m old.

(If you are a frustrated WordPress user, here’s the workaround, courtesy of Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Go to My Stats; click on WP Admin; click on posts; and Voila — you are at your old familiar dashboard. Thank you, Connie! NEWS: And just this morning I noticed that from my home page drop down under My Sites, WP Admin is actually one of the tabs. Yes! Eliminate extra clicking!)