Tares

It was rainy and cool over this past weekend. Even though I'm pretty much a "northerner" at this point it still catches me off guard when the low temps dip into the 40s and the high temps stay in the 50s in June. Cripes, its supposed to be summertime! The sun was out this morning for the first time since Friday. And it was a gorgeous morning (though it was still cool enough to wear a jacket and biking gloves). As I watched a soccer game in a cool drizzle on Saturday I remember wondering why it felt like April.

Writing about weather is mundane and about as boring a topic as you find. So, I'm not really sure why I do it other than that it provides a safe, neutral topic on which to warm up my neurons. With so many prickly topics in play these days, its nice to have a safeharbor where you can say whatever you want without offending anyone. Which gets me to thinking about the topics I find most troubling. And how to gather my thoughts on those topics for the inevitable discussions, debates, arguments and battles that appear to be at the doorstep. Perhaps a cool rainy June is just the wake up call I need to prepare for what lies ahead.

The biblical parable that comes to mind is that of the wheat and the tares. A certain landowner observed that someone had sown tare seeds in his wheat field and wondered what he should do about it. Now, I've never had a wheat field but I know what a healthy one looks like. I've also never had tares growing in my lawn, but I definely have had weeds. And I do have a yard that borders a public park in a city that doesn't believe in treating its parks for dandelions. Over the years I've watched as dandelion seeds drift over onto my lawn. Once they've taken hold its nearly impossibly to eliminate them. As an older farmer friend of mine once said of weeds, "One year of seeds, equals seven years of weeds". And so it goes.

Its amazing that an ancient parable still applies to me and the circumstances in my society in 2009. All around me I see tares being sown by people who are motivated to disrupt or destroy core values and societal patterns. Some sown the seeds for tares in their own gardens, others seek to broadcast and distribute the seeds far and wide. Others use strategem to have others hasten the spread and widen the distribution pattern. And gradually, with each coming gust of wind and wave of seeds, the infiltration grows in momentum.

Lawnowners can spray all the herbicide they want but dandelions seem to persist, leading some to consider using the nuclear, or "Round Up", option which works to destroy weeds for a season but also kills all that is good and beautiful in the process. As the ancient parable teaches, removing tares serves only to uproot and damage the wheat. Better to focus energy on strengthening the wheat's root structure so that it withstands the onslaught of tares, becomes beautiful for all to observe and ultimately is prepared for when it can be sorted from the tares at the next stage of its life.