“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?
Matthew 6:30-33
I succumbed to peer pressure and cut the grass of our front lawn, which we share with a neighbour in terms of upkeep because of pie-shaped lots. And the house next door is empty because the new owners haven't moved in, so I've cut their lawn a couple of times as well. Today I'll set the mower high and address the backyard because I'm an old white male but I have been waiting because of No Mow May. Have you heard about this encouragement to leave our lawns be so that pollinators have some early blossoms, usually in the form of dandelions? We've become so intent on cutting and killing what we consider the pests of our lawns that early insect populations are suffering.
Plastic lawn and offending blossoms
We have moved toward treating our lawns as though they are astroturf, and actually in Britain there has been a considerable increase in replacing actual turf with fake lawns. There was a story last week about a woman who complained to her local council about a neighbour's flowering tree and the fallen blossoms which were infesting her plastic lawn, requiring constant hoovering. She has also posted photos on social media of the desecration. She was advised that blooms gonna fall, and that people needed to understand that this was beyond council jurisdiction. This woman's head will likely explode when the Autumn leaves come down.
How do we live with respect for our neighbours and "live with respect in Creation" as the New Creed invites us to do? Perhaps we accept that those bees and other pollinators are neighbours who are absolutely essential to the wellbeing of Creation. We literally can't live without them, but we would all be better off without plastic lawns. Maybe someone will invent a noxious neighbour spray which renders the hyper-vigilant voiceless.
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