From April 2004:

…and I don’t want to work outside.

That line from an old Derek Webb song (Stupid Kid) has been all too literally true for me. I hate yard work. To me, it is sheer drudgery. I hate being sweaty and dirty. I dislike the smell and feel of dirt. Men who seem to live for working on their yards are a perplexity to me.

So why did I have such a satisfying time today? I spent most of this day scrubbing mold off our landlady’s deck. It had all the elements of physical labor that I usually so despise. I spent most of the time with my back hunched over, hands in bleach water, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. But I could not escape an inexplicable sense of satisfaction.

Could I be changing? Perhaps, like the boy in Derek’s song, have I made the thought of working outside a monster in my own mind?

Two weeks ago we were visiting my oldest daughter and her family in North Carolina. On Saturday morning, my son-in-law John went out to work in his back yard (something he loves doing). At first, I went out with him just to keep him company, but soon I found myself picking up a rake. We were clearing away debris and undergrowth to make some footpaths through his wooded yard. Before I knew it, I was five years old again, reveling in a childish fantasy world where little globs of mud become a mighty dam holding back a storm sewere torent. What seemed like drudgery before became a creative activity; almost art.

Well, there was no art in scrubbing the deck this afternoon. And yet, that same sense of satisfaction. There was my best friend, my wife, working beside me. There was the strangely pleasing sight of the high pressure hose causing the mold to slither away like a thwarted snake. And something approaching delight to see the wood looking like the day it was installed when it dried later.

The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed…God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 28th, 2006 at 7:15 am and is filed under It`s All About Me, Tell Me a Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.