Bitter Roots

      Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.  “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.  See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.  See that no one is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son.  Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. Even though he sought the blessing with tears, he could not change what he had done. (Hebrews 12:12-17)

          See to it … that not bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

          Many years ago, I got some Lemon Balm. It was in a pot, and I had planned to put it in a bigger pot but in my planting mania, it went into the ground. A couple years ago, I planted Bronze Fennel and Borage in my garden. This year, I planted Moon-flower seeds to either side of my front steps and made trellises for them to climb.

          The longest story is about the Moonflowers. The plant on the south side of the steps came up fairly quickly and filled the trellis and the railing on the steps with little heart shaped leaves. It’s now dropping producing seeds though I have yet to see a flower. The plant on the north side of the steps grew very slowly (like most of my garden this year) and has huge heart shaped leaves and comparatively thick vines. What I think happened is that morning glories from my neighbor’s garden have somehow seeded the area south of the porch. In fact, I’ve found some growing up through Stephen and had to unwind and remove them. The plant on the north side is the only Moonflower.

           The story of the Lemon Balm, Bronze Fennel, and Borage? I’ve pulled out the Lemon Balm, but it grows in the garden, in the yard, in my neighbor’s yard and garden. The Bronze Fennel is follow its example in a far shorter time. And the Borage, while not traveling as far, is spreading in the garden. I have wild strawberries in both my front and back garden (no fruit worth discussing, and at least one other herb that escaped from someone at some point in my back yard. And, of course, there are those prickly plants that are invading my back yard am the thistles that are doing so to my neighbor’s gardens.

          It’s disheartening. You mean well, you plant a thought in your mind garden, and the next thing you know it’s either everywhere, or it’s a hundred foot tall oak, or both. Try as you might, you can’t seem to get rid of it, and you’re sure you didn’t mention it to that person in your life, but when he opens his mouth or looks at something, you see it there, too. You didn’t know it was an aggressive spreader or that it reseeds itself a thousand times over every year, but getting rid of it? Sigh. Our poor neighbors.

          Bitter herbs are said to aid the digestion. They help move what we eat through our bodies. Among other things they’re used to ease constipation. Bitter roots tend to move things through our mind, easing a sort of mental constipation quite often through some measure of verbal or emotional diarrhea (sorry to put it so coarsely.) Returning to the gardening metaphor, it’s like a the Lemon Balm, Bronze Fennel and Morning Glory that are now growing in the next yard.

          What I need to do is go cut all the little seed tips off the morning glory, and vigorously weed my yard and my neighbor’s to remove every Lemon Balm, Thistle, Bronze Fennel, Strawberry, and other undesired plant I find. I need to do this on a daily basis for the rest of the time I live here.  I also need to do some research to make sure I know how the things I plant are going to behave. The same goes for our minds. We need to be careful to plant things that aren’t mental Giant Hogweeds, (Nasty stuff – Google it), or other invasive species. They may look good at first, but when your skin blisters, or your attitude, and the attitude of the person sitting next to you grow bitter, and the verbal diarrhea starts, it’s seen for what it is – bitter roots.