The Garden Weasel

I have been the recipient of countless gifts over the years. People have been very good to me, very generous. I have never thought that I “deserved” their generosity, but I have always been humbled by their thoughtfulness. Some time ago, (and I am not sure whether this occurred here in Shreveport or Arkansas) I caught an infomercial on television advertising what is called “the Garden Weasel.” You may have seen one of these advertised. The Garden Weasel is a four-foot steel rod with a handle at one end and a four-pronged steel end. The purpose of the Weasel is to manually aerate your lawn or flower beds so that the soil can receive the amount of water and nutrients that will make the grass and the flowers thrive. Failure to properly aerate will cause the failure of the growth needed. The Garden Weasel, while not the easiest tool to use, still does its job – by inserting the four prongs into the soil, and turning the apparatus with the handle, it opens up the soil and makes it receptive to those things that will ensure its growth.

I thought that the Garden Weasel advertisement was perfect as a metaphor for what the Lord wants to do to our spiritual lives: He challenges us, particularly in the Lenten season, to open up our lives, to be receptive to what changes He wants to make in our lives. So, I used the Weasel as an image in one of my pre-Lenten sermons. I could see in the congregation people nodding that they understood the metaphor, and more importantly, they grasped the necessary changes they might have to make for the soil of our spiritual lives to be open and receptive to God’s will for us.

Some months back, I received a long package in the mail. I couldn’t imagine, at first glance what the box contained. It had no return address, so I could not see from where it came. But upon opening it, I laughed as I pulled from the box my own ‘Garden Weasel.” Yes, I laughed, but then I wondered if someone had sent that to me as a suggestion that I have some spiritual work to do in my life, to open up the soil of my spiritual life to be more receptive to whatever changes the Lord wants to make in my life. So, I keep it near my desk. It’s a constant reminder that in my life there is much work that needs to be done, and not just seasonally as in Lent, but continually so that I grow into the person that Jesus expects me to be.

For now, I suggest that if you’ve never seen the advertisement for the Weasel, you imagine what it looks like, and more importantly, the kind of twists and turns we can make in our lives that enable spiritual growth to happen. May it happen for us all.