It’s the time of the year when things pile up. At Campbell, students walk around like zombies as they complete papers and study for exams. The library is open 24 hours. In homes all around, to-do lists for the Christmas season get written far faster than they can be completed. In stores, underpaid and underappreciated cashiers do their best while grumpy shoppers stand in line. On every hand, folks long for the holiday just so they can catch a break.
In my yard, it’s the leaves that have been piling up. I usually run over the yard with a lawn mower at least once per week, chopping and bagging the leaves for a big mulch pile on my little garden spot where the worms are currently wreaking havoc with the collards and brussels sprouts.
But it’s been a busy time. Travel and work and upcoming events (and blogs that done get done as often as I’d like) have left precious little time for yard work, and the leaves have been piling higher and higher. Instead of being the green (and brown) yard on the corner surrounded by leaves, I had the leafy corner with green on either side.
It’s amazing how good it can feel to get outside and do some old-fashioned yardwork. A couple of hours’ labor and some good help made a world of difference. Getting up the leaves is one of those jobs that brings the inherent reward of letting you see that progress has been made, that you have made a difference — and that there’s the light of promised relaxation somewhere above the pile.
The back yard is still a mess, but I’ll get to it, and the semester will soon be over, and Christmas will come, and we’ll all get a chance to dig out from under the piles and breathe before long.
Happy shoveling!
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
