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Thresholds: A Line in the Grass

There can be little doubt about it now: I am an old man! It has been a hard thing to accept, but the unavoidable truth is setting in. It is unwelcome. I am disposed to follow the inclination of Dylan Thomas and “rage against the dying of the light”. The problem is that age has stripped me of the energy required for rage and glaucoma is making the whole “light” end of things moot. My resistance takes different forms as the clock ticks.

For the past few years, one of the little battles that I have waged has to do with cutting the lawn. My lot is a little less than a half acre. Virtually no one in my neighborhood does their own mowing. In summer the air is frequently laden with the sound of heavy mowing machinery and voices in foreign tongues (largely Spanish) as grass is shorn and bushes are trimmed.
I love mowing my lawn. During my working life, my activities had always, it seemed, to do with abstract things. I was ever deprived of the satisfaction of holding a gear that I had personally milled or admiring the house that I had built with my own hands. Mowing is a partial compensation for this. I love cutting a straight strip through the long grass and then just pausing to admire it. It is visible. I am proud to have done it. I don’t want to cease doing it.

The topography of my lawn will never be confused with that of Mt. Everest or even some gently rising peak in the Smokies. However, the backyard is tiered. It rises eight or ten feet from the back of the house to the rear lot line. Mature trees comprise most of this area, but there is a thin ribbon of grass that rises about four feet, encompasses my deck, and extends across the yard’s width. I have several times (in my escalating feebleness and senility), fallen off of it (the lawn). So far this has only resulted in badly bruised or cracked ribs. Jackie now mandates that I do not attempt to mow the backyard unless she is home.

As assessed by my tottering intellect, the hiring of lawn care represents a threshold. I know that once I have crossed it, my continuing physical decline will never allow my return. This thing that I enjoy will never again be mine to anticipate, appropriate, and experience. Once I have given it to another, it will never again be mine. I hold on!

Worldly pleasures are almost entirely subjective. It strikes me that “lawn mowing” may not make the Top 500 on most folk’s list. Should you ever document your enjoyments, understand that every item in your catalog is possessed of an evanescence. As with every other vestige of this world, it will someday pass away.
Where is joy then for the old man who must someday soon relinquish every worldly pleasure? My joy is in my Savior who will someday soon introduce me to rivers of holy pleasures which will never diminish, never cloy, never end. Be encouraged therefore:
“…our salvation nearer than when we believed.” Romans 13:11KJV

George Moore
Elder Emeritus