Sourweed

Junior just couldn’t shake it, this idea about leaven being evil that Preacher Pat planted with the congregation. The thought just didn’t resonate, but then, he was not Jewish and life in the first century was foreign to him. He understood a little more about boll weevils because around Four Holes it seemed like recent history. He came from a line of cotton farmers, and the family stories were filtered through the War of Northern Aggression and the boll weevil. Still, leaven bread tasted good and boll weevils were a pest. This much was clear to him.

Then, one day Junior walked out the front door and down the driveway to get the mail. Pulling out the mail, he paused to satiate his curiosity by reading the return addresses. Standing there, without thought to what he was doing, he bent down and picked some sourweed to chew on. Sourweed was a favorite treat provided by nature, and by now, chewing on it was habit, something common around Four Holes.

Walking back to the house, Junior stopped. Something occurred to him that had not before. He remembered his granddaddy telling him, “Junior, if you want to get rid of sourweed in the field, you have to make the field fertile.” Now, preparing a field for planting was something Junior understood, and in this moment, he knew what Preacher Pat was trying to say. Sourweed was, well, a weed, and though it tasted good, its existence meant the field was not good for planting. You might like it, but you have to get rid of it if you want a good yield.

Yes, old rumex acetosella, sheep’s sorrel, or what everyone knew to be sourweed, had provided Junior an answer to his contemplations. All became clear. God likes to meet us on common ground and sourweed wasn’t just common, it was everywhere.

Because Junior had capacity, he understood God was making his field fertile, the field he knew to be his heart. Junior had been wayward at one time, but that time had passed and wisdom came to rest with him. If you asked the folks in Four Holes, they liked the new Junior over the old one.

Taking his contemplations a bit farther, he realized a good Christian needed to make fertile the field around him, too, like his community and his family, and those crossing his path even if it was apparent they liked sourweed more than the fertile field. Of course, this wasn’t the end of things. It was just a beginning. No one knew the end of things except the Almighty and Junior knew not to be presumptuous.

He thought one day at a time and one person at a time was all he could do. God would do the rest. He had seen enough bullfrogs jump into the swamp to know that when bullfrogs jump, God did the ripples.

Junior went on back into the house, finished a pimento cheese sandwich, and went back to the field.