In February the pine and oak trees suddenly burst out in fuzzy yellow green tufts of pollen that fell like snow on the ground and the sidewalk, covering our car in a thin layer of windblown chartreuse powder and stuffing up Keith’s nose like cotton. In March the needles and leaves finished falling and the new ones almost instantly budded out in their customary spring green color. The pollen dried and began falling in earnest, turning the new green grass brown under its carpeting. Every time I finished working outside, I brushed my shoulders off before heading inside.
I thought I was in good shape, but in the middle of the night my hand ran over my pillow and I felt it—several large grains of something, and as the sleep fog lifted I realized what it was—tufts of pollen. On my pillow? How in the world…? And then I knew. It had fallen into my hair, and my hair with all its corkscrews had trapped it like a net. The only way it was coming out was with a comb—or rubbing it on a pillow, I guess. The next morning I cleaned out my hair, brushed off the pillow and sheet, and swept the floor. Then I walked around the house and discovered more on the floors of every room. So I swept them all. But that only fixed the problem that morning. In the afternoon, I had to check my hair all over again.
It’s easy to think you can be in the world and not be contaminated by it. Yet every day you bring home those same contaminants if you are not careful to remove them. They will not easily brush off. They will not stop falling just because it’s you they might fall on. And if you leave them, perhaps thinking you will get them out later, or that they will fall out on their own where they won’t hurt anyone, they will affect every part of your life before you know it. Your language changes, your dress changes, your interests change, and finally, your attitudes change, and suddenly you are not the person you thought you were.
I have learned to brush myself off every day while the pollen is falling, to run my fingers through my hair and untangle the ones that are trapped. I check my shoes and the creases in my jeans. And I do it whether I have been outside all morning or just a few minutes. Contamination can happen in a flash.
Be sure to check yourself this evening before you hurt not just yourself, but the ones you love.
Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Jas 1:27
Dene Ward
I thought I was in good shape, but in the middle of the night my hand ran over my pillow and I felt it—several large grains of something, and as the sleep fog lifted I realized what it was—tufts of pollen. On my pillow? How in the world…? And then I knew. It had fallen into my hair, and my hair with all its corkscrews had trapped it like a net. The only way it was coming out was with a comb—or rubbing it on a pillow, I guess. The next morning I cleaned out my hair, brushed off the pillow and sheet, and swept the floor. Then I walked around the house and discovered more on the floors of every room. So I swept them all. But that only fixed the problem that morning. In the afternoon, I had to check my hair all over again.
It’s easy to think you can be in the world and not be contaminated by it. Yet every day you bring home those same contaminants if you are not careful to remove them. They will not easily brush off. They will not stop falling just because it’s you they might fall on. And if you leave them, perhaps thinking you will get them out later, or that they will fall out on their own where they won’t hurt anyone, they will affect every part of your life before you know it. Your language changes, your dress changes, your interests change, and finally, your attitudes change, and suddenly you are not the person you thought you were.
I have learned to brush myself off every day while the pollen is falling, to run my fingers through my hair and untangle the ones that are trapped. I check my shoes and the creases in my jeans. And I do it whether I have been outside all morning or just a few minutes. Contamination can happen in a flash.
Be sure to check yourself this evening before you hurt not just yourself, but the ones you love.
Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. Jas 1:27
Dene Ward
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