Why Lawn Mowing is a Religious Experience

The reason I consider mowing the lawn a religious experience is due to the number of times I have invoked the name of God or his Son, Jesus, during that onerous task.  Through the years it’s been like a Saturday service in the open–a cathedral in the round, if you will.  Those words I used following Their names were simply uttered for emphasis–sort of like an exclamation point.

When I was a lad back on the farm it fell to me to harvest the crop that grew in front and along the sides of our house.  That crop was called grass.   Like most farmers we did not dedicate a great deal of acreage to grass production due its fast growth and its innate unmarketability.   Grass that did not become hay did not produce income.

The machine I used was a reel-type push mower with a built-in back-breaker and sweat-gland-stimulator.  That in itself would prompt the first call to the Almighty and begin the Saturday service.  Before long I would brush up against the hydrangea bush, disturbing a wasp nest and suffer a nasty sting on my shoulder which was already beginning to ache.  Call number two.  Way before I was half  through sweat would begin to fill my eyes.  This was for the purpose of allowing gnats to humanely drown after flying into them.  By then I had forgotten whose turn it was to call upon so I simply invoked both Names in their order of importance as I understood it.

While I may have considered these Heavenly contacts to be religious in nature, my mother and both my grandmothers did not.  Consequently, then, as in later years, I learned to speak aloud  when only God and Jesus were around to hear.  The punishment of choice when I was young was to have one’s mouth washed out with soap–Lifebuoy as I recall.

As I grew older and bought my own home the lawn got bigger but the mower got better.  It had a gasoline engine on it.  You still had to push it.  It still hurt your back and made you sweat and the gnats continued to drown in your eyes but it made noise.  The main difference between the power mower and the reel-type mower is:  the reel-type never threw a lost golf ball through my garage window.  #*@$*((^# (!!!  That was the invocation–another Saurday service is underway.  The other difference is the reel-type didn’t come with a rope.  “Starts on the first pull everytime,” the salesman said.  My religious experience is more deeply felt than ever before.  Pulling on a starter rope will make a believer out of you.
                                            
Now in my later years, I’ve got it made.  Not only do I have a power mower but one I can sit down on.  My lawn is huge and I don’t care.  I sure hope I don’t lose my faith by eliminating the Saturday calls on the Dieties.  But, wait a minute!  What’s that sputtering sound?  Sounds like the gas line is clogged or maybe it’s the air filter–a bad spark plug, perhaps.  Don’t you quit on me and make me have to push you all the way back to the shed.  Awww, #%*&@(^%# !!!!

Tell you what, God.  Just so we can stay on an even keel, tonight before I go to bed, I’ll get the bar of soap and you can hold my mouth open.