A Prayer For Lawn Mowing

In the old days, there were moats around castles, big ditches filled with water. In children's books they also had alligators or sharks or dragons. Between the moat and the surrounding forest was a belt of green grasses. Trees had been removed so that anyone in the castle could see who was approaching from all sides.

Sometimes at the side of our house there's a thin line of lawn, just wide enough for one pass of the lawnmower as it moves from the front lawn to the back. That's the last remnant of the circle of green that surrounded the castle.

In our apartments we plant flowers to bring the ground to us, to keep our feet firmly on the ground even we live on the ninth or nineteenth floor. Below, someone whose first name we know cuts the lawn surrounding the building or the token spare patch. That person is actually John Wayne.

Yes, John Wayne standing tall in the saddle, surveying the ranch, horizon to horizon, ensuring that all is well, the herd accounted for, the weather clear, no hints of dust clouds in the distance were enemy horses are thundering towards our home, our castle.

Our prayer is for continuity, for recognizing the connection between our lawn and the greenbelt outside our moat; but, more importantly, for recognizing what is protected within.

Our prayeris really for our home, for the secure zone within these walls where we protect and nurture each other, where our children know they will always find shelter, warmth, patience and love, where a trim lawn or a clean apartment hallway is the outside face of calm order within.

Yuri Rubinsky