A lady came to mow my mother-in-law’s garden today. She was 70 if she was a day. Her appearance divulged an unkempt dignity, a charming lack of concern for societal mores. She was decked out in threadbare tracksuit trousers that revealed unshakeable self-assurance and a clear singularity of purpose. Evidently, she didn’t give a shit. A ragged turbanesque hat topped her head, revealing only a few strands of grey hair that dived out from beneath it. Her rugged, almost corrugated face revealed years of toil, but also made public an energy that defied her discernible age. As she left, I witnessed her standing on the driveway binding a collection of plastic bags to an ancient lawnmower blotched with years of grass stains and scuffs, preparing to wheel the contraption back to her home two streets away. She was accompanied by her impeccably behaved four year old granddaughter, who piously observed as her grandmother cropped every inch of the back-garden. The young girl sat on the floor, and was instructed to pick weeds that her mind’s eye had transformed into onions and other vegetables. The story goes that aunty has an undying desire to acquire property, and since her migration from overseas, has frequented the gardens of the locality, trimming and cutting her way onto the property ladder. Reportedly, she never turns down a job, ensuring that a relative substitutes for her should she be unavailable, and her reliability has gradually secured a monopoly over the local garden-mowing game.
Comfort breeds contempt for the blessings that constitute one's existence, and is therefore extremely dangerous for the one who seeks proximity to The One. She who is not frequently reminded of how unconditionally dependent she is upon the Divine Mercy permits the seed of self-reliance to germinate, which, like an uncontainable vine, soon strangles the life out of her heart, leaving it cold, hard, and conceited. Woe the wayfarer who is not frequently exposed to her own limitations, for she has not had the chance to pick up the pieces of a life in tatters with newly gentle hands. Neither has she perceived the lives of others through the eyes of true mercy, for it is only the rarest human who can demonstrate compassion for something she has not personally tasted. More often than not, distress is the access point for Reality. It is only catastrophe that has the capacity to deconstruct the carefully weaved web of miscalculations we wrap our existence in, like a clement wrecking ball t...
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