Goines On: Fewer weeds, more flowers

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The woman walking her dog toward Goines seemed to be treading waste. Not really – the sidewalk was clear. Treading waste metaphorically. Something in the look on her face provoked the thought. And he had seen the look on his own face many times – in the bathroom mirror, in selfies that – if he shared them – frequently prompted some busybody to tell him to smile.
    He had seen it in the faces of other grocery shoppers, in the waiting rooms of car dealerships, doctor’s offices, dentists. Everyone – literally everyone? – was treading waste, a chalky veneer of sludge accumulated from the pains and fears and disappointments of negotiating life. It weighed on people, even as they automatically, without intent, in self-defense, pushed it down into unconsciousness in order to attend to something pleasant, or at least neutral.
    And more than faces signaled the smudge. Goines saw it later that day on a car sticker. “Just Pray!” How bad did things have to get for someone to display that? And the ubiquitous “Thank You Jesus” yard signs. Of course, some of the motivation for those was straight out of doctrine. For Jesus so loved the world…that we ought to thank Him for his sacrifice. But maybe more of the motivation for “Thank you Jesus” was the sign’s association with church, which afforded weekly bucking up by congenial company – and sermons, to the extent they didn’t induce guilt. Thank you, Jesus, for getting me out to church on at least one day of the week so I can believe a little better that everything is going to be all right.
    Why did Goines see and think about the smudge so much? It hit him later that morning, in his back yard, after he had told himself he was finished pulling weeds and was pushing the collection bin across the lawn, continuing to look for weeds, that he was missing the flowers, which were beautiful. Were his eyes more open to weeds than to flowers?

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