My Small Push Mower
Several years ago, I disposed of my heavy B&D lawnmower and gave up mowing my yard myself. Everyone in the family said I was too old to be doing strenuous work like that. The last cut made by my hired grasscutter was before the start of winter last year when the grass became dormant.
When spring came this year the grass started growing again, together with weeds that appeared from nowhere. I sprayed it with a weedkiller. Now the grass has grown taller and needs to be trimmed.
With a small easy-to-push electric mower, I finished cutting my grass. Now my lawn is a beauty to behold. Given more time and care, it might look close to the turf of a golf course (hopefully 😉).
Pushing a small lawnmower leisurely is a form of exercise like walking. While it stretches the muscles and makes the lawn beautiful, the exercise has added benefits, like time to think and meditate on important things, talk to God, or hum favorite songs or church hymns.
And after seeing the "final product" that is a well-manicured lawn, there is a sense of satisfaction in having turned something sore-looking into a thing of beauty.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the foremost Catholic philosopher and theologian, defined beauty as "that which pleases when seen." He, however, was more concerned with spiritual and moral beauty than with natural and physical beauty.
It is not difficult to agree with him. After all, it is easy to see that physical beauty fades away, while moral or spiritual beauty helps bring us to the Supreme Beauty that has no beginning nor end.
As long as my physical strength will make it possible, I will find time to push my small push mower to keep my lawn pleasing to look at, but will, more importantly, try to push my spiritual mower in little daily exercise to keep the spiritual beauty that The Creator has put within. "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Cor 3:16)
I believe that aspiring for Everlasting Beauty is for all. The Church calls it "the universal call to holiness." It is a call we need to respond to . . . with joy! #
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." (John Keats)
“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness, I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. . . " (Confessions of St. Augustine)
