Beware the cricket up your skirt

I pulled approximately 847 weeds out of our front yard this morning. In one area I disturbed some lawn crickets, whom I sent scurrying, one of them barely missing the gap between the bottom of my left thigh and my walking shorts. I imagined that a cricket up my shorts leg would have provoked a lively dance.
    But my mind, anyway, was already doing its wonted lively dance. Gardening, especially Sunday-morning gardening (with its contrast of my form of outdoor "worship" to that of church-goers), has for years set me to musing and, in doing so, has continued to recommend itself to me as a mentally healthy activity.
    What struck me this morning was that weeding (by the way, if you google on "weeding photos," you'll likely be asked whether you didn't mean "wedding photos" and, even after you insist that you meant "weeding photos," you'll be given the addresses of surprisingly many sites where "wedding" is spelled "weeding")...what struck me was that weeding can be an apt metaphor for what ex-smokers do when they vehemently condemn smoking and smokers. Their sometimes vociferous condemnation seems to me to be an act of negative exultation. By dwelling on the evils of smoking in restaurants, second-hand smoke, etc., they're reminding themselves how happy they are that they themselves were able to give up smoking.
    Pulling weeds out of your lawn and planting beds can be a way of exulting in how nice your yard looks. I certainly think ours looks nice and I always enjoy it when a passer-by stops to compliment me on it.

Negatively exulting seemed to me to be what I do in continually harping on religion. (My wife and my daughter occasionally comment that I seem to be obsessed with it.) If I weren't so happy that I was finally able to give up religion, I probably wouldn't condemn its second-hand smoke so often or with such relish.