Give them a Week

Image: AI generated image of a man mowing the lawn.

As I face the task today of getting my mower running and ready for the season, I cannot help but think of my father. Dad loved to mow the lawn. Not in a 'gardener, what can I plant here way', but in a 'spend four hours on a mindless task' way. From the time we were in middle school, he always had yards that were acres of grass waiting to be mowed. When he worked locally, he would mow every day; when he travelled for work, he would mow all weekend. As a kid there were always two or three mowers in the garage, at least one of which was torn apart and waiting to be fixed. In his last years it was tractors in the barn for mowing (not lawn tractors, tractor-tractors pulling a bushhog) and of course, at least one of them was torn apart for repairs.

He found joy in the work; the work was the reward, more than the lawn itself. Mowing was one of our areas of conflict when I was a teen. I had no interest in it (especially when there were books waiting to be read!) and it was a battle of wills. I'm still not sure today which of us won, but since I'm even contemplating mowing, it must be Dad. I would love to say that I've adopted Dad's love of mowing, but that would be a fictious claim. Of course, I write fiction, so....

Nope. Doesn't work.

I wrote last week that you just had to give the Trump Administration a week and they would give you something to write about. This week's winner (there were so many things to write about this week!) is the DOJ terminating a settlement in Lowndes County, Alabama that required the state to support infrastructure improvements in an area where most residents (almost all of whom are Black) did not have functioning septic systems. This meant all of their household wastewater and sewage is piped into their yards rather than a septic system. Super unsanitary and the state had known the problem existed for years and never acted on it. Why did the DOJ terminate the settlement? DEI! Apparently if any action benefits Black people, the Trump Admin claims it's illegal.

What is wrong with these people?

They call themselves Christians. (The runner up story is the State department issuing orders to all employees to report anti-Christian bias and activities.) These actions demonstrate a paucity of faith and Christian charity.

I think sarcasm is dead because if you are not the slightest bit self-reflective, you won't get it. And they don't get it.

We must not abide cruelty.

Win a free Kindle edition of Love: a novel of grief and desire: I work with Reader's Favorite on the Kindle book giveaway. If you go to https://readersfavorite.com/book-giveaway/love/1 you can sign up for the monthly giveaway. You can scroll through the list of giveaways (over 500 each month) or sort the list by title or author to find Love: a novel of grief and desire and put your name in for this month's drawing. Good luck!