Article April 17, 2000 Issue

Parents: forsake, turn, and gather

"I no longer feel angry when challenges arise, nor do I feel that I have something to lose."

By Allison T. Demarkles

Years of tending house and grounds have taught me that if we don't inhabit our space, something else will. Dust, cobwebs, pests, and weeds take over when the proper attention is lacking.

When we had a yard cleanup at our church years ago, I went to work in an area that had been beautifully planted several years before. Now it was overwhelmed by tall weeds. As I got to work, I realized that six or seven of the branches came out of only one stem. There weren't nearly as many weeds as it had appeared, and the work went very quickly.

In a similar fashion, the way we see life around us—as essentially materialistic, routine, purposeless—can be deceiving and intimidating, like the weeds I encountered, if not faced up to and uprooted.

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