Differences

I witnessed a situation over the weekend that got me thinking about humanity and how different we can be. Our church organized a work group to help out a neighbor whose back yard had gotten away from her. She had re-landscaped the entire yard last year. The front still looks great. But evidently that back yard ran into some problems. Even though initially the sod had looked great, there was no sprinkler system (or it was broken–I’m not sure which), and the lawn died out. Then it became overrun with weeds, some of them as tall as me. It was well beyond anything any one person could hope to tackle by herself.

And so perhaps about two dozen of us showed up on Saturday morning to see what we could do. I took my three kids with me. We were just a little late and people were already working. Everyone started from the gate area at one side of the property. But from there it got interesting.

There was little coordination, not much discussion about objective or methodology. There was some discussion that the property owner planned to lay down sod again, so we didn’t need to worry about getting out all the roots, necessarily. But the ground was soft from a gully-washer rainstorm the night before, and in many cases they would come up fairly easily just pulling.

In lieu of a coherent plan everyone just did what came naturally. For some it was to start pulling the bigger weeds, bearing straight for the middle of the yard. Others went home and returned with weed-wackers, wading out to do battle in the deepest weeds. Some people got hedge trimmers and began attacking the overgrown vines along the fences. Some began meticulously pulling weeds around the perimeter, or clearing specific areas of every weed they could find. Some, considering that the gate was made up of two swinging halves, and realizing it might be useful to get both sides open, cleared the other half of the gate area others had quickly left behind.

Still others noticed that we were creating large piles of weeds quickly, but that we needed them hauled out to the trailer parked out at the street. Someone organized the younger helpers and began collecting the pulled weeds, transporting them to the trailer, and getting them compacted down to make room for more. After a while some noticed that those with the weedwackers had cleared a sizeable area, but it was still full of short stubble. They left and came back with rototillers to dig it all under.

Eventually someone contacted someone we knew who owned a medium tractor with a tiller deck, who promised to come over and bring their tractor. We were quickly instructed to finish taking down any large weeds that the tractor might not be able to handle (or might tangle up the mechanisms), and when the tractor arrived they were able to make short work of the entire yard, tilling all remaining weeds and roots under.

After about four hours of work the yard looked pretty good. Some people left after an hour or two. Others arrived after a few hours. Me and my kids hung in there for three and a half hours. We all agreed it had been satisfying to help out, and felt good about our efforts.

But as my mind returned to the project throughout the day it occurred to me how everyone had responded differently to the initial task, likely in keeping with their personalities. Some just started blazing a way forward. Others lingered behind to clean up more thoroughly. Still others looked for ways to make the work more efficient. And some just quietly supported the others by getting the downed weeds out of the way.

I suppose someone experienced with the work of clearing weeds would tell you we did it wrong, or less than right. Our varying efforts likely resulted in a hit-and-miss approach wherein some areas of the yard were cleaned better than others, leaving some areas more likely to regrow weeds quickly than others. Some might say we only postponed the problem.

But the property owner was overwhelmed by the support. We accomplished in a few hours something she never could have done by herself. Regardless of whether the weeds come back, we’d given her another chance to get things under control long enough to implement a more final solution. We didn’t solve her problem, but we made it solvable. There was no way she could have even done that alone.

I wonder what might have happened if the various groups of people working on the weeds had decided that their way was the best and that everyone else should adopt the same approach. Might the whole effort devolved into chaos and bickering? Would people have become upset and stormed off, refusing to help at all? What if some of the groups had become obsessed with making sure the other groups didn’t succeed, lest they make them look bad? What if the guy with the hedge trimmers had to spend half his time running back to plug his cord back in after someone else kept pulling it out to spite him? What if the guy who brought a machete had decided to use it on the fuel line of the guy with the weedwacker?

That didn’t happen here. In spite of the fact that our approach wasn’t unified and coherent, the job got done well enough for what was needed. Everyone worked, and no one worried about whether someone else was doing it wrong unless they were very clearly doing something wrong. People tried different things, and whatever didn’t work, they stopped doing. People helped and supported each other. No one griped if someone took a break (there was food and drink provided by some wonderful souls) or stopped to chat with someone else for a few minutes. No one counted how long someone disappeared for. No one got upset if someone else used their tools.

I could extrapolate further on this experience and what it might mean, but I’m not going to do that. I leave it to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions. You shouldn’t have to look far, however, to find some aspect of modern life to which you may equate this analogy. I will say this, however. I believe my experience, though not without its problems and perhaps unintended conesquences, was at least one example of how things can get done.