Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Let it be known that I, ER, prone to self-injury and arachnid attack, worked in the yard for eight solid hours yesterday and did NOT lose any limbs or minor appendages or otherwise injure myself despite using sundry blunt instruments and sharp-edged tools including a spade shovel, post-hole diggers, long-handled hand tiller, rake, hatchet, square shovel, long-handled lopping shears, hand trimmers, hand pruner, a crowbar, garden claw and a hoe.

In the main part of our front flowerbed, I tore out a bunch of bermudagrass, dug up two rose bushes, ripped up some ground cover whose time was long past, reset some of the stones around the border, hand-cultivated the whole thing, and planted two 4-gallon yellow mums, two 2-gallon orange mums, two 2-gallon red mums, one 2-gallon white mums and one purply 4-gallon crepe myrtle, then spread six bags of cocoa-colored hardwood mulch, which goes well with the native sandstoney house. Trimmed some other stuff, and thought long about cutting a low-hanging limb from the oak tree in the front yard, but decided to not.

Of course, I can barely move today. At least I am uniformly worn out. I hate it when just one set of muscles is sore.

As I was finishing up, it occurred to me why, despite wanting to all that for a couple of years but never seeming to get to it, I finally did:

I did very similar kinds of things the Saturday before at church. I think the wherewithal to get after it at my own house started there. You see inspiration when you look for it.

But what's the principle here? I thought it might have been a case of the bread coming back over the waters to me, a la Ecclesiastes 11:1, but that doesn't fit. Then I thought it might've been the "give and it'll come back to you idea," a la Luke 6:38, but that doesn't fit. Hmmm ...

--ER