I once heard a speaker whose goal with his lawn was to collect as many different kinds of weeds as possible. In fact, he knew the names of all of the varieties in his yard. He was very excited about the whole thing (I did wonder how his neighbors felt). Some people collect baseball cards. Some people collect stamps. And at least one person collects weeds (on purpose).
Listening to him did get me thinking about our perception of goodness and beauty. Many weeds are not necessarily ugly in and of themselves. Take dandelions for example. In my humble opinion, the dandelion is not necessarily a bad looking piece of vegetation. However, it becomes undesirable when it grows in the wrong context. A meadow full of dandelions wouldn’t probably bother us that much. However, if the dandelion kingdom starts to take over our yard, we’ll spend half the next paycheck making sure they die and never come back. The dandelion isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s bad in the context of a yard full of grass.
Interruptions are like that. When someone or something unexpectedly shows up during our day or is injected into our beautifully manicured master plan, we almost always see it as ugly. We wish that it had never popped up. However, if we can take the time to look at in and of itself (aside from the context) we will see that the interruption has a beauty of its own.
Interruptions are often people, sometimes with needs, sometimes offering opportunities to do things a different way. In either case, whether meeting human need, or moving in a new direction, beauty is there. It’s always been there. We just have to stop looking at the lawn and focus on the pretty yellow flower right there in the middle.
By Jason Weber
