Sticky Willow

Sticky willow entwined amongst the wild sweet peas, strangling them into congested heaps. They lay trussed tightly against the stone dyke, tangled in the dying daffodil stems and leaves. The green stems and frond-like flowers of the weed blend so well with the sweet peas that sometimes I stare and initially can’t discern them – then suddenly they pop out and I try to trace them back to the roots. Very often, though, the brittle stems break and the root is lost in the green carpet, left intact to grow again. If I don’t pull them out, they diminish the beauty of the wild sweet peas.

Opinions can be like sticky willows. They take root silently, unnoticed. They are formed by and rooted in circumstance, preference, by others we admire, by others we obey, by our own rebellious inclinations. They can entwine around our thoughts and influence our judgment, until the truth begins to fade, to weaken within us, to twist and distort. We can become critical and brittle, denouncing others as we clump in camps of like-minded individuals.

Sticky willows seem to have overwhelmed the White House, tying people into prisons of received opinion, strangling truth and blocking out the light. Sticky willows seem to be growing profusely in Downing Street, compromising truth and undermining ethics. Like triffids, they are creeping into Parliament and Congress, pulling people into factions hardened by hatreds rooted in opinion, not fact.

When I garden, I often fail to eradicate the roots of the sticky willows. I have to return to the same patches and weed them out several times. I’m praying to our Father the gardener, to reach down into this world and delicately but completely pull out the partisan lies and self-serving untruths, the brutal racism and rampant injustices against the innocent, to release truth and refresh beauty.

We like to be independent, to think that we can do it. No. It’s time to lean in to our Father the gardener more than ever and cry out to him to please, come in and sort us out.