Unintended Consequences

 

There’s a patch of dead grass in our backyard. I wish I could say it was a result of the long, hot, dry spell we had this summer. Or perhaps that our dog fell back into her digging obsession that we thought she had left behind. But I brought this on myself.

We’ve had a nutsedge problem back there for a while. Nutsedge is a weed that looks a bit like grass, but grows taller and faster, is a little bit thicker, and is terribly hard to get rid of. I’ve been pulling it out by hand for the last several years, but I never seemed to make any progress. I’d think I’d gotten it all, only to come back two weeks later and discover more than I had before. It’s one of those weeds that if you don’t get all the roots, they come back stronger and mightier than before. And the roots can go a foot and a half down into the ground, so just pulling them out from the surface is hard to do.

They were in both our flowerbed and our lawn, and while I finally dug up the flowerbed, pulled out all the nutsedge and replanted the flowers, I couldn’t very easily do that on the lawn. Most lawn weedkillers don’t work very well with nutsedge, so I came up with what I thought was a great idea. A targeted approach.

I would use RoundUp—it kills everything (more or less). And while I’m hesitant to use it these days after its links to cancer, I was desperate (okay, okay…maybe desperate is a bit of a stretch). But I had a plan. I wouldn’t use it indiscriminately—after all, I wanted to save my lawn. I thought I’d take a targeted approach.

So I put on rubber gloves, I poured a small cup of RoundUp, and I sat in our backyard, painting RoundUp onto each nutsedge plant while carefully avoiding any good grass. When I was done, I cleaned up and waited to watch the nutsedge die. I was pretty sure it would work—I was just hoping it would get the roots and all so the nutsedge wouldn’t come back.

It wasn’t long before I began to see results. The next day, the nutsedge turned brown. It withered up and died. I was ecstatic…until I noticed that the grass was starting to turn brown as well. And the grass next to that grass. Soon I had a very noticeable death zone in our backyard—the targeted approach was a complete failure. To make it all worse, the only things that survived in the RoundUp death zone were two small nutsedge sprouts I still needed to dig out by hand.

What I thought was a targeted approach ended up withering everything in its path. Sometimes the same thing happens with the words I use. I say something carelessly, and suddenly I’ve caused hurt I hadn’t intended. Or sometimes, I’m not proud to admit, I actually want to cause hurt with my words—and I think I can control how much hurt I cause, only to discover what I thought would be a mild irritation to my targeted opponent actually lands more like a nuclear explosion. It’s especially true during this tense political climate where very few people are extending grace to one another or giving them the benefit of the doubt.

James 3:3-12 tells us that not one of us can tame the tongue. It is “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” With one word it can cause destruction—like a small spark starting a devastating wildfire. We might think we can control it, but like the RoundUp in my backyard, it usually causes more pain than we ever intended.

James notes that it’s the same tongue that we use to praise our Lord that also hurts our neighbor. This should not be, James says—what we use to honor God should honor God even when we are not consciously, intentionally honoring God. The honor and praise we give God is empty if at the next moment, our tongue turns around and lashes out at our neighbor.

This has really been challenging me as we approach the election in November. There are so many times I’ve wanted to shout, “What are you thinking!?!” or “How can you possibly believe that?!?” Or “How can you be such a ……!?!” But how I treat my neighbor—even (or possibly especially) my neighbor that disagrees with me—is a direct reflection of how much God’s love has taken root in my life. These days it’s a daily challenge to die to self and love my neighbor as myself. Sometimes I’m fairly successful, but others I can almost see the circle of destruction spread as my words get out of hand.

I’ve planted some new grass in the backyard, and I’m happy to say it’s starting to grow back. I’m hopeful the destruction I’ve wrought is not permanent and all will heal in time. I’ve since read online that sugar actually works to control nutsedge. Maybe I’ll try that next time. Seems a bit fitting when it comes to my words, as well.