Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

I love the sight of a beautiful grass lawn, but I’m not a fan of taking care of them.  I can understand the desire to create something beautiful, but for me at least, pushing a lawn mower around has always been one of my least favorite things to do.

     Approximately 80% of all homes in the United States have grass lawns.  A $40 billion industry has grown up around caring for them.  They consume more water each year (about 1/3 of all public water) than is used to grow all the wheat and corn in the United States.

     It has been estimated that around 3 billion person-hours each year are spent just to mow the lawn.  Consider this: at its peak, about 400,000 people were working on the Apollo program.  If you took that 400,000, multiplied it by 40 hours per week from 1961 to the moment Neal Armstrong stepped on the moon, you would come to about 6.7 billion person-hours.  Factor in that much of that time there were far fewer than that peak number (when the program started in ’61, for example, there were only 10,000) and it is not too much of a stretch to say that in a given year people spend as much time mowing their lawns as it took to put a man on the moon.

     Do you think it is possible that there might be a better way, a more constructive way, to spend so much time and money?  How did this whole “lawn” thing get started?



     Blame the Europeans.  To give guards a clear view of the surrounding area, castle grounds were kept clear of trees and brush.  Take away the trees, and grass naturally sprouted up.  Our word “lawn” has its roots in the Middle English “launde” which means “a glade or opening in the woods.”  Four hundred years ago nothing said you were someone special like having a “launde” around your home.  The idea took hold.

     There is an aesthetic component to a well-landscaped lawn.  They can make ordinary homes look warm, inviting and beautiful.  The National Association of Realtors reports that a beautiful lawn can add 11% to the value of a home.  I would suggest, however, that what really makes a house a home isn’t the lawn at all.  It is the love, compassion and investment of self day after day, year after year that makes the difference.  That’s the home where people want to be.  Maybe those lawns aren’t quite so important after all.  Just ask someone living in a condo…

"If I speak n the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and al knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (I Cor. 13:1-2).