Last week, one of my dearest friends was called home. Jim was in his 90s. He and his late wife, Bernadette, were among the first to welcome us when we moved to Toledo over a decade ago. Over the years, Jim and I duked it out regularly over a cribbage board. It was always so much more than a game; it was an extraordinary window into his soul.
Jim had wonderful stories. Many people discuss God, faith, and mercy in the abstract, but Jim was candid about everything—and I mean everything. He frequently spilled over into “TMI” territory, but I didn’t mind. Most of my other mental drawers are filled with his memories, and this is the one I keep at the very top.
At his assisted living home, Jim took a daily Rosary walk with his trusty pooch, Eddie. One day, he wandered down a path less traveled and came upon an army of encamped weeds. “Encamped” is exactly the right word—Jim was a war veteran and a master gardener. On his beloved turf, these flowering pretenders were an invading force. He resolved to return the next day to evict them and reclaim the territory.
Note the “old world” ethic here. He wasn’t motivated by money, duty, or recognition. He didn’t stand to gain a thing. He took it on simply because it needed to be done, and he had the means to do it.
The next day, bag in hand, Jim liberated area after area until he met The Monster Weed. It was deep, stubborn, and unyielding. As hard as he pulled, it wouldn’t budge. He tried again the next day with new resolve. No luck. On the third day, he’d had enough. He returned with tireless determination and a bit of a snarl: “I’m going to get you…you little bastard!” I’ve always marveled at how certain people can utter profanity with such timing and flourish that it almost seems virtuous.
Leaning down, both hands wrapped around the neck of the thing, Jim poured every ounce of energy into the pull. When that wasn’t enough, he leveraged the totality of his weight, throwing his entire body into the effort. Suddenly, the weed snapped. The momentum propelled Jim forcefully backward. His head and ninety-year-old frame were on a violent collision course with the hard cement.
In that split second, Jim recalls thinking, This is it. I’m going to be badly injured. But then something remarkable happened—something beyond human explanation. As he shared this with me, Jim teared up. “I felt the arms of God catch my shoulders,” he said. “Completely restraining my fall…just resting me down gently on the cement. Not a scratch.”
Linger there for a second. Get the meaning. Jim didn’t just see a problem and tackle it; he didn’t give up when it got hard. He didn’t “low bar” his effort, deciding he’d only try if it didn’t cost him too much comfort. Jim was willing to give everything for one simple reason: weeds don’t belong in gardens.
What weeds are we currently allowing to grow in the garden of our souls? Do we even recognize them? Pride, selfishness, lust, comparison, rejection. Do we see how they are impacting our marriages, our families, and our world? Or have we settled into a comfortable coexistence with them, unaware that they are slowly choking the life out of everything truly good?
What are we willing to do? How high is our bar?
Moreover, how often are we walking through the ordinary battlefields of our lives and missing the imprint of the divine? We pray for resolution, yet once it comes, we often fail to give God the glory, let alone share the testimony. We ignore the arms that caught us because we’re too busy looking at the weed in our hand.
In the memory of my friend Jim, I hear God whispering: Come and let me set you free. Be healed. Restored. Revived. Go to Confession. Apologize. Forgive—truly, from the heart. Declare My Lordship over the territory I made for My Spirit! Don’t rely only on your own energy; trust me with the totality of your being. I will not let you fall. I’ve got you.
So, brother Jim, I know the only thing greater than our desire for you to be with us is your desire for us to be with you. Until we meet again in that Garden where no weeds can grow, pray for us, as we surely pray for you, while you take your place in that eternal chorus, beckoning us home from the shadows of this passing age.
Photo by Duy Le Duc on Unsplash
