Light On Dark Water

Sunday Night Journal — March 21, 2004

I am a lazy man who leads a busy but sedentary life. I have a
desk job and usually work through lunch. I spend an hour and a
half every day in the car, going to work and coming home. What
little leisure I have I prefer to spend in other sedentary
activities, such as reading and writing, or listening to or
making music, or—let me force myself to be honest—all
too often, watching television. The only serious exercise I get
is a half-mile swim which is supposed to happen at least once a
week, on Saturday or Sunday, but which frequently gets crowded
out by other activities or postponed because of simple
laziness.

In winter—even our very mild winter—the laziness
puts up particularly strong resistance. Swimming is just not very
appealing in cold or even cool weather. Since last November I
don’t suppose my visits to the pool have come to more than
about one every two weeks, all told; enough to keep from losing
ground, but not enough to gain in strength or endurance. And of
course as I think most lazy people know, the less one does, the
less one wants to do. So it was with no pleasure at all that I
decided on Friday that I really must do something about the yard
this weekend, which probably should have been mowed at least once
more last fall and was now hosting an unkempt and unwelcome
growth of weeds, especially in the spots where the expensive sod
we laid two years ago has failed to prosper and is leaving bare
patches.

Moreover, my wife had arranged an opportunity for me to assist
her in bringing into some kind of order a large bed of weeds. We
had turned up and mulched this bed in the summer, pending a
decision as to how to plant it, but had neglected the battle
against the weeds that found their way through the mulch, and
they had been hardy enough to multiply and thrive through the
winter. We would need to dig up the whole bed, dump a pickup
truck load of compost on it, and move some large elephant ear
plants around in it.

In short, I began mowing the lawn Saturday morning
in a mildly sour mood, thinking of things I would
rather be doing. So it was surprising to me at
the end of the day that I was cheerful and even energetic, or at
least what passes for energetic with me. I had not done all that
much physical work, but it was more than I ordinarily do and not
enough to exhaust me. My limbs felt stronger and more lively, a
pleasant contrast to the dull slackness which sets in over days
and weeks of sitting. I could have done more.

It was a beautiful day, not very humid for our coastal area
and with a temperature somewhere in the 70s. And this (or
somewhere within twenty-four hours or so of it) was the first day
of spring. To dig in the earth, to overturn weeds and erect more
desirable plants, seemed exactly what one ought to be doing on
such a day.

Today is the fourth Sunday of Lent, the mid-point of the
season. I can’t say I have ever undertaken any great
sacrifice during Lent, and less this year than in some past,
especially when I was young in the Church. However I have never
given in to the temptation to make no sacrifice at all. I have
been reasonably successful so far with the small (very small)
ones I have taken on this year. And as with physical exercise any
effort at all makes a difference. One rises at least a little out
of slack torpor and finds that it is, after all, possible to say
no to a beloved habit. One feels an unaccustomed hint of vigor in
the will, and realizes that one could do more. But usually I fail
to cultivate this strength with continued exercise, so that I
soon lose what little ground I’ve gained. This year I will
try to keep up the exercise after the end of Lent. I feel in my soul
a little of the strength that yesterday I felt in my body, and I ought
to try to keep it for a while.