Faithful in the Ordinary: Tending My Backyard

Summer is here and so is my back yard.

Of course, it never left. But in a climate with four seasons, the summer version is the version that most people admire. Specializing in layers of green, its birch, willow, and perennials flourish in the rain and sunshine.

The patio beckons me in its early morning moments because the quiet is both cooler and quieter than any other moment. While I enjoy breakfast, I give thanks for the gift of this space and time.

But it’s complicated. A bit like life, the space of this small urban lot is cluttered, layered, complex. Deep under my feet, for example, runs an underground stream. At one time, that stream was above ground, right where I’m now sitting. Gradually, that stream filled itself and the land around it with marsh. Layer after layer of soil grew until the land on which I live became an option for urban expansion.

By that time, the land entered the world of monetary worth. Now the patch that my back yard inhabits is no longer owned by the birds and the bees, flowers and reeds. It’s also no longer held loosely by a legal structure that reinforced the common good, like its nearby lakes and streams. Instead, it represents taxes collected for access to housing and services.  

As a result, our community lost habitat for the native species, breathing space for living things, and the natural scrubbing mechanism for clean water. I wasn’t responsible for this change. Instead, I tend its results.

Since my patch was in the wettest patch within the city’s expanse, it was the last to be drained, platted, and sold. In particular, my little piece lingered the longest. I have pictures of the lot waiting first for its basement. Until recently, I also had the story-telling neighbors who filled in its history.

Our back yard had ample traces of the history before our acquisition. Our hands didn’t bring the white pine as a sapling from northern Minnesota’s forests to our lot’s corner. Clumps of peonies, honeysuckle, hostas and even tulips arose unexpectedly around the parameter. An old-fashoned  lilac lived in a corner, and row of juniper anchored the end of the deck. Two huge ash trees gave shade. Our family lived in a space that we didn’t build or plant but tended.

My backyard ownership also came with another piece of history. On its deed is the prohibition that this lot never be sold to black, Indian, or Jewish families. I wasn’t responsible for this racial covenant. Instead, I tend its results.

Finally, we decided to give a different meaning to ownership. The result brought in bulldozers to re-slope, birch clumps to replace ill-suited ash trees, willow bushes to take advantage of the soil’s capacity to hold moisture. Patio replaced deck; clumps of hosta and phlox and peonies, repositioned.

Now we had subtly added a different kind of layer, a psychological one. Grandchildren playing, fences built and painted, family cats interred, trees dying and being replaced—all create personal attachments to the space. Every hour invested deepens that sense of ownership.

For this use of the space, I am directly responsible. Have I made the best choices, encouraged lifegiving practices, reflected values of creation care and social good? 

My space also rubs elbows with neighbors. On the street a few yards down comes the sound of cars headed to work and back. Sometimes I hear the sirens of ambulances and firetrucks too. Overhead planes occasionally pass. Sometimes the planes belong to the national guard base a mile or so away. Dogs and their owners stroll past on the sidewalk that I maintain in partnership with my city. Sewers work, water taps run, electric wires connect, trash gets picked up. Each is a layer of complexity that makes my back yard ownership possible.  

All of these things contribute to the health and welfare of my back yard. I wasn’t responsible for setting up these sustaining systems. Instead, I use them. How do I also tend them so that all things work together for community good? 

Attending to each layer in ways that create shalom for me and my neighbors turns out to be more difficult than what appears to the casual back yard  visitor. Perhaps, if I were not a Jesus-follower, life would be easier. Then I might be able to limit ownership of my back yards to its real estate value.  

But I’ve given up the easy life for a life called to tending. And that means paying attention to all the layers wrapped up in the greens of my back yard.

And I live in the expectation that one day all the layers will be renewed, the sinful removed, and my back yard made really and truly good.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come.