decorating the landscape

It was a perfect-picture park. There was a setting-sun sky to the west, and the east sky was filled with clouds, heavy grey but with with deep-blues and yellows highlighted from the sun. The sunbaked orange arbutus trees on hill tops accented this background sky. With my one boy haphazardly running and kicking up sand and the other fearlessly climbing every metal play structure, it was Hallmark defined.

Ah...but the trash. My heart bleeds when I see these human droppings. It's hard to turn off this flowing tap.

McDonalds and their fellow drive-through kinfolk indirectly serve billions of eyes as their wrappings are overly and routinely emptied from cars onto roadside, parkside, and everyside beauty. My anger is strengthened everytime these roadside tracings pollute my eyes. I have inentionally looked around for the scraps so that a strong case can be made in my mind and heart against the offense and offenders. This energy expenditure has heated up, boiled in my pulsing veins.

Yet, I'm thankful I'm beginning to find a different way.

It has helped me to remember my Dad. Wherever we were, he picked up trash when he saw it. I remember Dad taking walks during sailing breaks and always came back with a handful of cans and papers. He never gave verbal expression, but quietly bent down and picked up the offending item. I don't think he was even angered by it. He just saw it as part of his job in life to keep things clean, and he never seemed to begrudge folks for creating scattered messes.

As a kid, it embarrassed me to no end to have Dad walking by my side with a handful of scraps as he scanned for the next available trash can. Yet, he taught me in what he did, and those memories are becoming a part of me now. Lately, I speak less and act more.

I have been realizing that my silent criticism of unkown individuals is the same as the original offense. I still scan the grasses for the leftovers. Yet, I don't look to reinforce a negative idea I have of fastfood or of folks who consume it or of folks who deposit its remants. I look for an opportunity. It's an opportunity to serve, make beautiful and restore.

It's really an act of re-creation. A re-creation of Dad, the landscape, and me.