May Letter

Friends in Christ,

Spring is here, and with its arrival my yard once again is filled with an abundance of flowering things, none of which I planted. The grass, which I did plant, has mostly enjoyed its brief life in my lawn and then died. Just like the old saying 'You can't step in the same river twice', you can't mow my yard the same twice, because there are always new weeds and ant colonies and who knows what else out there.

As I mow, I think about the idea that there were no weeds in the Garden of Eden. To our modern eyes there were probably weeds, but at the time, it was just an abundance of creation. Only when we selected what a desirable plant was did we create weeds, which were suddenly undesirable. If our idea of a perfect lawn was that it was simply green and uniformity did not matter, then there would be no weeds. To Caleb's eyes, dandelions aren't weeds but objects of wonder and delight. The whole concept of a weed is a mental construct, a category in which we place plants that we think don't belong.

It's easy to do the same with people. In our minds, we construct images of normal people. Typically, this includes people that look like us, and may include people similar to people we are already friends with. It's easy to make an ideal community that includes people who look and act like us, and to treat the others as weeds, less-than-desirables.

But the diversity of the world is, I believe, something wonderful in God's eyes, because each and every one of us is made in the image of God. It's a human idea that we should look or act the same. To God, we are all beautiful (though tainted with sin and in need of redemption, which he has graciously provided in Jesus Christ) and treasured.

So may we endeavor to see people as God sees us, worthy of love and affection and attention. May we recognize our propensity to label some people as 'weeds', and may we instead look for the wonder and delight in each.

In Christ,

Keith