IS God a Lawnmower?

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

I just had to laugh, and ask myself, what is the lesson I can take away from this 

 
I went to our back yard garden to sit in my favorite blue Adirondack chair, surrounded by white and yellow daisies and wildflowers my wife has cultivated over the years.  I wanted to listen to the birds while meditating.  I don’t often do this – go outside to mediate - but this year, we seem to have more birds chirping and singing in our yard than at any other time in the 36 years we’ve lived here.  I was looking forward to the joy of having birdsongs guide my way to stillness.

I was just beginning to settle into my meditation, when a neighbor from two doors down started up his very loud, gas powered lawnmower.  Knowing that my neighbor’s yard is smaller than mine, I figured he would only be mowing for about 20 minutes at the most and that I could find a way to ignore the noise as I tried again to settle into thoughts of peace.  Being a Quaker, I’ve learned that seeking the Divine requires quiet and not necessarily silence. 

Sure enough, in less than 20 minutes the lawnmower stopped.  The silence was stark and welcomed, the sound of the birds re-emerged and I found myself smiling.  I could once again focus on the bird songs, on the weight of my body on the chair, on my rhythmic breathing as I allowed my thoughts to float past, as if they were leaves in a stream.

Whap, Whap, Whap, Whap, Whap – the sound of my neighbor’s weed whacker punctured my reserve.  Jesus, I thought to myself, come on!  But then I caught my growing agitation and refocused my energy on letting things go.  Letting my irritation go.  Letting the sound of the motor sink to the background.  This letting go was working and shortly, the motor stopped and the silence returned.   Thank you – I thought to myself.

Even with all the interruptions I was finding some stillness while sitting in our garden.  I was pleased that I didn’t allow the noisy lawn care to drive me inside.

Suddenly, I was startled by the high pitched whine of a leaf blower the same neighbor was using to blow the grass clippings off his sidewalk and back onto the lawn.  At this point, I just had to laugh, and ask myself, what is the lesson I can take away from this comedy of meditative challenges.

As I sat there listening to the relentless sound of machine blowing grass and dust into the air I had a sense that even though it was irritatingly loud, the man and the leaf blower were both connected to the universe. 
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I went to my backyard to find the Divine in the sound of the songbirds.  Instead, I found the Spirit of God through the intrusive roar of a leaf blower.  My meditative thought is that the Spirit is everywhere and cannot be ignored anywhere; that the whine of a lawnmower is just as much the sound of the Divine as is the melody of the songbird.