Do We Just Live, Fight Weeds, and Die?
“Cursed is the ground . . . it will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.”
– Genesis 3:17–18
I read an obituary the other day of a farmer who “raised Angus beef cattle and kept the cleanest hay fields in [the] County. Thistle, chicory, nettles, and multiflora roses were his enemies.” And now, you know all you need to know about life outside the Garden. Now you know all you need to know about life east of Eden. We live, we fight the weeds, and then we die.
I think about this as I’m out in the garden, blistering under the summer sun. I should have gotten out here sooner, when it was still low on the horizon and the ground soft with dew. But I delayed, and now, I’m bent over, my face in the dust, sweat trickling down my back. I’m working on the weeds that have grown up between the gaps of the black cloth we laid for the express purpose of preventing weeds. Only a few weeks ago, our garden was neat and spare; today it is teeming with both life and pestilence.
The tomatoes have grown strong, but hornworms as long and as thick as my thumb drag their fat, green bodies along the stems. Cucumber plants have climbed a leaning trellis, but cucumber bugs threaten the very vines that hold them there. White moths dance above the broccoli and cabbage, occasionally dropping down to lay their eggs on them. Eggs that, left unchecked, will hatch into larvae to be discovered in my kitchen. Down at the bottom of the garden, the potatoes are covered in striped, brown beetles, happily feasting on their leaves. And while we haven’t had good rain in weeks, somehow the weeds continue to grow—chickweed, henbit, dandelion, plantain, and lamb’s quarter. Perhaps we should have planted them in the first place.
I grab a handful of foxtail, wrapping my fists around as much of it as I can. I don’t wear gloves because I never have; this is how I’ve always fought the weeds and the world, bare-knuckled and determined. Hunched over, I lower my center of gravity and use my body as a counterweight. It’s a tug-of-war, and if my hands slip, they’ll burn with a dozen tiny cuts as the blades of grass slice through my skin. (We call them blades for a reason.) I hold tight, willing the clump to loosen, and suddenly with a pop, it does. As the roots come up, I go down and a fine mist of powdery earth sprays into the air, enveloping me in the dust.
It’s here in this part of the season that I most feel the words of Genesis:
Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
And I wonder how long it will be before we just give up. Tending fatigue has already set in, and what seemed manageable back in spring now feels untenable and un-tendable. Soon, we’ll find ourselves facing a choice. We can busy ourselves even further, exhausting our efforts, trying to contain the weeds and pests. Or we can let the wheat and tares grow together until harvest; we can accept the fact that our garden will not be pristine. Like the world around us, it will be full of both blessing and curse, both life and death. We can accept that our efforts are not enough.
I already know what we’ll choose. We’ll choose what we choose every year: We’ll choose to give ourselves to the work of harvest and preservation. We’ll choose to spend our time staying one step ahead of the curse. And as we pick and freeze green beans and jar tomatoes for soup, we’ll know it’s the right choice. But we’ll still feel shame nonetheless.
“We’ll choose to give ourselves to the work of harvest and preservation. We’ll choose to spend our time staying one step ahead of the curse.”
If you don’t garden, you may not know that such shame exists; but ask any gardener, and he’ll tell you. There’s a very specific kind of shame that comes from working the earth. The shame of a plot untended or even one that simply looks untended. The shame of crops that fail and a field choked by weeds. You feel like it’s your fault somehow, that you’ve done less than you should have. And maybe it’s true; maybe you are the sluggard in whose field, “thorns had come up everywhere, the ground [is] covered with weeds.”
Maybe if you’d just tried a little harder. Maybe if you hadn’t gone on vacation that one weekend. Maybe if you’d just been more diligent from the beginning . . .
I’ve thought a lot about this kind of shame that plagues gardeners and writers alike. The shame of doing your best and it still not being enough. The shame when your dreams don’t produce as you’d hope. The shame of it all being right out there in the open, right out there for every passing soul to see. Your weedy beds and wilted crops. Your wormy peaches and blighted apples.
The shame of not being able to exercise dominion and failing at the one task the man and woman were given to do: to guard and keep the garden.
Not that anyone will say anything. Because while gardeners will say to each other, “Your garden looks good this year,” they’ll never even whisper the opposite. Gardeners are kind, humble souls who know they could be next. But why, I wonder, why do I feel this shame? Because I can’t singlehandedly keep back the curse? Because I can’t stop nature from what it will and must do? Because I’m not the Messiah?
I think of the parable of the tares, how the farmer’s field was overrun with weeds, but he let them grow together until the end. I think of how the apostle Paul begged for the thorn to be removed and how the Father simply said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I think of how Jesus promised that “in this world you will have trouble.” And how, just hours later, thorns pressed into His brow and a reed hung from His hand, how the curse mocked His work.
In this world, you will have trouble. In this world, you will eat bread by the sweat of your brow. In this world, you will feel shame and sorrow. In this world, you will wonder whether your work is making any difference at all.
There is no shame in seeing the world for what it is. It is not lack of faith to accept what God Himself says to be true about it. In fact, I wonder if the opposite is so: Does denying the brokenness signal a lack of faith? Do we deny the tares and thistles because we don’t believe that He can overcome them? Do we count on our work because we don’t trust His?
“There is no shame in seeing the world for what it is. It is not lack of faith to accept what God Himself says to be true about it.”
Then I remember that Jesus also said this: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Take heart! the wheat will grow.
Take heart! the harvest will come.
Take heart! the tares will be gathered up.
Take heart! I am coming to set all things right.
Excerpted from Turning of Days: Lessons from Nature, Season, and Spirit by Hannah Anderson (Moody Publishers, February 2021). Used by permission.
Hannah R. Anderson lives in the haunting Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She spends her days working beside her husband in rural ministry, caring for their three children, and scratching out odd moments to write. In those in-between moments, she contributes to a variety of Christian publications and is the author of Made for More (Moody, 2014), Humble Roots (Moody, 2016), and All That's Good (Moody, 2018). You can connect with her at her blog and on Twitter.