Poison Ivy, Confession and Prayer

I'm editing and writing with a huge splinter under the nail of my left middle finger. It's bone-jarringly painful, and it won't come out. I tried the Orajel, needle, and tweezer fix, but the splinter is old moist wood. Little clumps break off with each dig. I jammed it in while gardening this morning. When it embedded when I'd grabbed a clump of plantain weeds along the raised garden bed, meaning to whack it with my garden clippers. I howled when it slipped so quickly between nail and flesh. Hours later, I have no will to dig about under the nail with a needle breaking off wood and drawing blood. I need to research a drawing solution.

Rather than stand at the bathroom sink, I took my hurt and anger out first on the poison ivy that has curled and webbed up the fence line and along the raised beds, emerging here and there at the A-frame trellises my husband built to accommodate peas, beans, tomatilloes, cucumbers and anything that will vine up. I crawled on my hands and knees under the chicken-wire trellises. I yanked and hacked. I cursed the cursed ground. Poison ivy. Insidious sneaky beast. When I was eleven, I had a case so severe it last for a year. I think I ingested it. After a year of desperately cloroxing the patches of seeping, itchy pustules, it went away. For good, I thought. Not so. Two years ago, while weeding, I hosted a new reaction on my arms and legs. I learned to wash in a poison ivy soap, slather in caladryl and cover up. I read that other people dress for hazmat when they weed it. Never burn it. Never put its remains in your compost pile. Bag it immediately after pulling it out from all its roots. 

The trouble is, I cannot get out the roots, some of which are curled cleverly around the chain link fence. Oh, how I curse that fence, which the neighbor says is ours but the property deed says is hers. Under the A-frames, hacking and yanking in anger, I grow angrier and justify more hurt. The splinter throbs. My forearms begin to itch. 

Out the front door comes my thirteen-year-old son who refuses to help with the garden and resists even indoor chores. While I produce salary and salad by the sweat of my brow, he refuses to work towards our household good.

"That's all poison ivy," he shouts, adjusting his headphones and dropping his skateboard. 

Not, "Thanks, Mom, for doing that so I don't have to." Not, "Thanks for gardens and full-time work and all you do so I can watch YouTube, skateboard, borrow your headphones and exist on only my favorite foods." 

It occurs to me as the wind pushes hair in my face, trying to soothe me, that I'm whipping up into  frenzy. Like cussing, this yanking and whacking fails to vent my frustration. It feeds it. Between jerking and snipping, I do have moments of clarity. Like, I should be asking forgiveness for stomping inside and unsettling everyone. Still I retort to my son's back as he skated off: "I'm doing this because none of you all will bother with it. It doesn't just go away if you ignore it."

I hate weeding, I mumble. I find myself wondering why  I garden. It makes me hate green things. Growing food means facing the weeds that would like to take over. Some are persistent but not nasty. I could cut those back less often, if not for poison ivy. It's the worst kind of sin. It finds an ignore space and spreads out, laying cabled vines in bundles, then popping up for a drink of the sun. I garden because, like work, I must. I weed like I do the unpleasant parts of my job. Sometimes that includes the insidious tasks of reflecting on what's not working and hacking out the worst habits. Poison ivy, the habits, the sins -- indulge me --  that hide and take over between the harmless little things. These require uprooting and it's ugly. There's no way to remove these habits and sins without exposure to the toxins. There's no willing it away. Ignore it, it gets worse.

In my spirit, I pray the Lord's Prayers, which includes the line, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Trespass. That's what makes some of the harmless plants, like broadleaf plantain, get the reputation as a weed. Actually, if I had the energy after all the angry hacking, I could bring in the broad oval leaves and make something like kale chips with them. I think about it in a calm moment. Found food. Instead, I swing back, blades of mind and hand. Poison ivy and plantain. Weeds growing up where unwelcome. I severe bald vines and roots and pong between good and bad thoughts. One minute, I think how this poison is like addiction or the worst  habits. It is like sin and confession, like the discipline of hacking out unwelcome habits. The moment, I return back to besmirching my kids and spouse and my neighbor for leaving me in the middle of the poison. Lone fighter, drawing the poison with a splinter under my nail.

Fr. Thomas Hopko, in his "55 Maxims," indicates we should pray the Lord's Prayer a couple of times a day. We should make this gesture like we should say "I love you" to our kids and spouses when they leave, like hugging them and kissing them. Why repeat a written prayer when all prayer is effectual? Because is how God taught us to speak to Him. It's love language on the other's terms.

Which means praying "Forgive us our trespasses" several times a day.

Forgive us for the day's curses against computers and cars, the stubbed toes, the splinters, the spills, the teenager who rages. Forgive as I'm still thinking with another section of my brain,  Are you kidding me, teenage boy? You're being a jerk. Who died and made you king? You ungrateful... If you only knew how I bend over backward for you... There's only one of me, kid. 

So many curmudgeonly thoughts.

Tonight, I will pray it and reflect on my sins. I should make a summation like I do with my calories and work. Did I need that last hot chocolate? Did my stomach serve me or did I serve it? Was I being fussy about the kitchen's cleanliness? Is it a sin to be disappointed that the incontinent and stubborn old pet woke up this morning too? What about the half a dozen times I saw my husband half-reach for a kiss, a touch while I rushed off to some other task? What of the friend I didn't call? These trespasses, sins if you will, are mostly harmless weeds, growing and growing. I need to take scissors to them before the poison exploits the places and hides. Despair, lust, addiction, adultery don't just pop up. Most passions cover the insidious ones which exploit the shadows. 

I went inside at the end of the hacking. I made an impossible plan to have us burn the weeds. My son loves fire so I assigned him to the task. Rightly he hackled. 

"It says everywhere on the internet not to burn that stuff." 

"I won't shove it into black bags that never degrade. That's no good for the universe," I hollered back.

"Now we're yelling," said my husband. I stomped upstairs to strip, take a cold shower with expensive Technu-soap and slather myself in the calahyst.

And, regret.

While I wrote and edited, I stopped and I said sorry. I made a new plan. Biodegradable bags don't cost that much more than regular ones on Amazon. We won't burn the weeds I pulled. We'll use the vinegar and salt to kill the leaves, mowing and heat to work on the roots. We'll ask the neighbor if we could own the care of the fence row. I said sorry again. My husband expressed his hurt. I said sorry again. How many times could I say it? As many as he needed. It's like that when weeds get out of control. Rooting them out becomes more work. 
He left for a run. He took the boy with him to the skate park. As I left the garden, we left off, with me feeling a sneaking dissatisfaction with my performance. II often walk away worried I didn't extract the poison at the roots.