Another New Beginning
The opportunity to restart is often vital for our success, whether it be something as simple as lawns or as complex as relationships
By Eric Nederlof, Solidarity Program and Support Local Manager
As we get near the end of March, I am beginning to see bits of ground poke up from underneath the snow in my yard, alerting me to the fact that I will have to spring clean my lawn soon enough. It’s yet another new beginning in a year that only recently began and a reminder that I get another type of fresh start to do some things different and some better to allow my lawn and yard to flourish better this year than last.
Though it takes me backward a few steps (starting with a dormant, dead lawn and leafless and fruitless trees), this postwinter reset allows me the opportunity to clean-up, prune, and then repeat actions that helped my yard and discontinue or alter the actions that didn’t work.
The opportunity to restart is often vital for our success, whether it be something as simple as lawns or as complex as relationships. When we do things in a wrong way, or we do the wrong things, we can stagnate progress, make them regress, or even ruin them completely.
Imagine if you had to find a new job every time you made a mistake at work. Got to work late once? Sorry, find a new job. Put a product in the wrong place on the shelf? Hope you do better at your next job.
No! Instead, training, coaching, and addressing shortcomings occurs and you carry on. Eventually, the slate is wiped clean, and you begin with a fresh start.
Because we are people, and to err is human, there is a level of justice in requiring an opportunity for someone to be able to make amends for accidental mistakes. But there is also an element of grace and forgiveness that must be extended for someone to truly be able to start over again, especially if the slight was due to negligence or done purposefully.
I like the way Mumford and Sons expressed it in their song, “Roll Away Your Stone”:
It seems that all my bridges have been burnt,
But you say, “That’s exactly how this grace thing works”;
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive with the restart.
Of course, persistent mistakes or catastrophic ones can lead to a point of no return or a place there’s no coming back from. If I don’t weed my lawn ever, or I continually overfertilize it, or if I overprune or underwater a tree, I may have brought it to the point that it can’t recover, even if it wanted to, and it has to be replaced. Here’s hoping that my lawn and trees can still offer me some grace and forgiveness.