Where the Wind Blows

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it. Socrates

A few months ago we had a fairly strong windstorm blow through our neighborhood. It wasn’t anything like the tornadic activities we see in the nation’s midsection this time of year, but it was enough to blow down sections of fence between us and our neighbors next door.

While it wasn’t the best looking fence I had ever seen, I didn’t realize just how rotten the fence posts had become over the decades since they had been put in. The whole property predates us, of course, as my wife and I have only lived here a couple of years. Still, it is what it is, and so we talked things over with our neighbor and made plans to replace the fence this spring, and the time has come to get ‘er done.

There are a few bushes alongside the fence that Barb and I have never much cared for. They are a wind-break variety of evergreen that stand about eight feet tall. As wind-breaks, they obviously didn’t work, and we never really liked either them or their placement in the yard. Seeing as they were standing in the way of the fence repair job we were about to undertake, we decided to take them out to make our work easier.

I grabbed all my tree-felling equipment and approached the offending greenery with all the confidence of Paul Bunyan and Babe. I stood there, hand on hip, sizing up the monstrous forest before me, curled my lips in the meanest manner I could muster, seized my chainsaw, plugged it in and, voila, the battle was joined!

I approached the base of the first bush, wielding my chainsaw as if it was a Samurai’s Katana. Sadly, my little electric chainsaw has about as much bite as a slug on downers. The chain screamed its little Bonzai while the bush simple shivered in laughter. But I persisted. I did not give up, and after a few minutes the first trunk (of about an inch in diameter) gave way and toppled over. I’m not sure, but I think it was reaching for a cigarette.

In any case, I knew the project would last decades if I didn’t take another approach, and so I got some industrial grade loppers we use for trimming trees, and I spent the next hour or so simply lopping off the bushes’ trunks one-by-one until most were down. I used a reciprocating saw for the stems too large for the loppers, and gummed the few over-sized left-over trunks with the chainsaw which, eventually, would gnaw its way through the wood with some patience, persistence, and (perhaps) profanity.

The space is now clear enough to work on the fence, and I’ve arranged for a young man to come remove the stumps (as he is better built for such labor). I know, because we had him do some other work a few weeks ago and he managed to break the forged steel blade of my pick/mattock! I was suitably impressed and plan to have him do all my digging before heading off to college this autumn.

Over the years, I have learned to pace myself and identify what jobs I can handle and which ones need to be farmed out. That’s also true of my faith and spirituality. There are some things I can do (avoid murdering those who annoy me, or stealing from those who have things I wish I had, e.g.), but there are things I cannot do. My mind wanders through some weird and dangerous neighborhoods. My soul is stained with stuff that won’t leave no matter how much I may try to Shout it out.

That’s where God comes in. God covers a multitude of sins and misdeeds. God chops away at the root of my problems and pries them out with the hard tempered steel of her love. God uses a blade that will not break and which, miraculously, leaves a life behind which is stronger and more beautiful, loving, and wise in her wake.

Sometimes it takes a storm to reveal what is rotten, a blade to remove what’s in the way, and time to discover what is yet to be. So be it in this, our valley.