The Weeds (a poem)

You don’t know how bad the weeds are until you try to plant and keep a garden. In a similar way, as C.S. Lewis put it, “no man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” These are the things I was thinking about when I wrote this poem:

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The Weeds

There are stinging kinds of weeds
In the deepest heart of me
Growing vines in all directions
Choking out my good intentions

When they sting I give a pull
Nice and strong—I aim to kill
But the roots wrap up my heart
—will I tear myself apart?

So instead I get the shears out
And I trim the parts I fear will
Hurt me most, or those I love
(Making sure to wear my gloves)

But now even as I’m cutting
There behind my back is something
Growing new and strong and stinging
Oh! This garden’s overwhelming!

What can stop my stubborn pride?
Kill this selfishness inside?
What can keep my greed from growing?
All my bitter roots are showing!

When you knocked—that’s how it started
And you found me broken-hearted
And you walked in, through the stinging
And yet somehow, you were singing

In the middle of my garden
In the tangled mess you dug, then
Put into my heart a seed—
Among the roots of all my weeds

It was far too small to notice—
You said it would be enormous
And would choke the weeds out slowly
Loose the grip in which they hold me

You said fruit would grow in sweetness
Love and joy and peace and patience
You said life was in that seed

Your own life—growing in me.

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“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

– The Apostle Paul, in Romans 7:21-25