MUSIC UNDER: Single, lonely violin playing
25 November, the year of our Lord, two thousand and twenty-two.
Dear Diary,
I am blessed to be here to write this, for today I blew leaves across one quarter acre of hostile territory. I do thank my Lord and savior Jesus Christ that I did not die upon that patch of land today. Sitting here my arms weigh on me as heavy balloons filled with suffering. My wife, bless her soul, is in the other room doing Yoga with Adriene. I do not know this Adriene, or her downward dogs and such. I do worry she could be a cult leader, but this is another hill to be climbed once my war with Autumn has ended.
I have heard some men say they love yard work. My yankee friend John Jaeckel once told me he loved yard work. I don’t know what to think of such men and I have never pretended to understand the mutterings of carpetbaggers and such, but I do solemnly believe such men are of the devil. I deeply believe as the Good Book has taught me that yard work truly is the curse of Adam (Genesis 3:17-19). Surely our pride for trying to cultivate God’s wilderness into our own little patches of Versailles have caused us to struggle with the thorns and thistles whose wretched voices remind us that it is to dust that we shall return!
While in my struggle today I came across the detached wing of a bluejay. Its imagery was imbued with both beauty and sadness. I fear it was felled by one of the neighborhood cats, all three of whom wear coats of gray. I am sure that they felt it their duty to ground this member of the yankee Air Force. Perhaps one day bluejays and cats might get along, and one day too men shall cease to blow leaves across lawns.
How is it that I have become conscripted to this folly of land idolatry? Dear reader, should I fall before this work is done please convey to my loved ones that I resisted with full heart and enmity against this mission, and let no man believe for one moment that I had any lust in my heart for yard work. For my soul is pure and though my enemy is before me I shall look him in the eyes without fear until one of us shall fall.
Letters From Nod 