“I got caught in the weeds.” This phrase has circled around in my mind this week because of the parable we will read this Sunday for the gospel lesson.
This is a phrase most of us are familiar with, right? Getting caught in the weeds. It means getting lost in the small details of an issue or a problem that solutions can seem impossible.
In my experience, learning about race and racism can become a point of getting lost in the weeds. I mean, just think about all the topics that we have covered in the few weeks we have focused on race: real-estate, economics, land, history, labor, education, personal histories, geography, whiteness, American history. That’s only scratching the surface. That doesn’t take into account all the other small details that each one of us engaged in this work have encountered along the way. Even when you get into the weeds I’ve listed, you start encountering other weeds: guilt, anger, cynicism, hopelessness, etc.
Take, for example, a book I’m reading right now. The first chapter starts with defining whiteness, but it engages history, labor, colonialism, and geography just to name a few. The second chapter focuses on issues of race and racism as it applies to Indigenous Americans. So, there I’m reading about culture, education, and geography. Again, that’s just to name a few. The book moves on from there to how race and racism becomes a global export. One chapter focuses on language complications between missionaries and the Tamil people of India, and how Tamil concepts of family, clan, and class got mixed with colonial concepts of race, meaning skin color. The book will deal with race and racism in Latin America and, ultimately, how racism morphs beyond a white-black binary.
Whew. The weeds.
Take, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic. I don’t think many of us thought that we would spend time thinking about scientific studies on air droplets and their lifespan in an indoor environment. We get caught up in the weeds of daily schedules. Can I get an “Amen” from the parents of young children out there? There might be no better example of “getting caught in the weeds” than what our school administrators are going through right now. All the different plans, all the different schedules. Who goes to school when? What classes are available? What about AP? How do you keep young people who haven’t seen their friends in months from hugging one another? How do you gently communicate the necessity of social distancing and mask-wearing without sounding harsh and mean-spirited?
Whew. The weeds.
The interesting thing in Jesus’ parable is that the farmer says to let the weeds grow. Now, I might be taking some interpretive license here, but letting the weeds grow means that the people out there in the fields have to pay attention to them. It means they have to spend time in the weeds until the harvest. If they’re watering the wheat, then the weeds are receiving water too. If they’re treating the soil, then the weeds will receive the same nutrients as the wheat.
What I’m saying is that spending time in the weeds is not a bad thing. Spending time in the weeds is part of the process of learning and growing. Spending time in the weeds is necessary to prepare for the harvest. Anyone who has spent hard hours on hands and knees weeding a garden, though, knows that spending time in the weeds is difficult. Sometimes it can feel like you might never get out of the weeds.
It’s like when we were driving back to Durham after our quick trip to Oklahoma. Eighteen hours, and that’s if you really push it. Each mile marker we pass becomes its own weed. Time slows down.
Me: “We have to be about 4 hours down the road, right?”
Tayler: “We’ve only been driving an hour and a half.”
Me: [sighs heavily].
Addi: “I want a snack.”
The weeds are part of the destination, though. They are part of the harvest, part of the garden, part of the trip home. We can’t grow tired of the weeds. We need to be aware of the long, complicated history of race and racism in America not just because it impacts other people, but because we will learn that we are also caught in a system and products of a system that we did not choose for ourselves. It’s not for our good, either.
So, do not be discouraged. Get caught in the weeds, and keep the harvest in mind.
Peace,
Brandon
This is a phrase most of us are familiar with, right? Getting caught in the weeds. It means getting lost in the small details of an issue or a problem that solutions can seem impossible.
In my experience, learning about race and racism can become a point of getting lost in the weeds. I mean, just think about all the topics that we have covered in the few weeks we have focused on race: real-estate, economics, land, history, labor, education, personal histories, geography, whiteness, American history. That’s only scratching the surface. That doesn’t take into account all the other small details that each one of us engaged in this work have encountered along the way. Even when you get into the weeds I’ve listed, you start encountering other weeds: guilt, anger, cynicism, hopelessness, etc.
Take, for example, a book I’m reading right now. The first chapter starts with defining whiteness, but it engages history, labor, colonialism, and geography just to name a few. The second chapter focuses on issues of race and racism as it applies to Indigenous Americans. So, there I’m reading about culture, education, and geography. Again, that’s just to name a few. The book moves on from there to how race and racism becomes a global export. One chapter focuses on language complications between missionaries and the Tamil people of India, and how Tamil concepts of family, clan, and class got mixed with colonial concepts of race, meaning skin color. The book will deal with race and racism in Latin America and, ultimately, how racism morphs beyond a white-black binary.
Whew. The weeds.
Take, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic. I don’t think many of us thought that we would spend time thinking about scientific studies on air droplets and their lifespan in an indoor environment. We get caught up in the weeds of daily schedules. Can I get an “Amen” from the parents of young children out there? There might be no better example of “getting caught in the weeds” than what our school administrators are going through right now. All the different plans, all the different schedules. Who goes to school when? What classes are available? What about AP? How do you keep young people who haven’t seen their friends in months from hugging one another? How do you gently communicate the necessity of social distancing and mask-wearing without sounding harsh and mean-spirited?
Whew. The weeds.
The interesting thing in Jesus’ parable is that the farmer says to let the weeds grow. Now, I might be taking some interpretive license here, but letting the weeds grow means that the people out there in the fields have to pay attention to them. It means they have to spend time in the weeds until the harvest. If they’re watering the wheat, then the weeds are receiving water too. If they’re treating the soil, then the weeds will receive the same nutrients as the wheat.
What I’m saying is that spending time in the weeds is not a bad thing. Spending time in the weeds is part of the process of learning and growing. Spending time in the weeds is necessary to prepare for the harvest. Anyone who has spent hard hours on hands and knees weeding a garden, though, knows that spending time in the weeds is difficult. Sometimes it can feel like you might never get out of the weeds.
It’s like when we were driving back to Durham after our quick trip to Oklahoma. Eighteen hours, and that’s if you really push it. Each mile marker we pass becomes its own weed. Time slows down.
Me: “We have to be about 4 hours down the road, right?”
Tayler: “We’ve only been driving an hour and a half.”
Me: [sighs heavily].
Addi: “I want a snack.”
The weeds are part of the destination, though. They are part of the harvest, part of the garden, part of the trip home. We can’t grow tired of the weeds. We need to be aware of the long, complicated history of race and racism in America not just because it impacts other people, but because we will learn that we are also caught in a system and products of a system that we did not choose for ourselves. It’s not for our good, either.
So, do not be discouraged. Get caught in the weeds, and keep the harvest in mind.
Peace,
Brandon