A Good Story
For the past four years that I’ve grown my garden, I’ve had to deal with Newman.
Our sub-urban neighborhood isn’t well known for its woodland creatures. I had expected to contend with a few remarkably human raccoons, an occasional opossum and perhaps (gasp) a rat or two, but it wasn’t likely I’d find Bambi romping around my fish tank sized backyard, nibbling at the raspberry bushes. So, that first year we decided to forgo the chicken wire and leave our plants unprotected. (Well, that and we didn’t even have the extra cash for chicken wire.)
That’s when I saw Newman. Newman is a groundhog. He is old. I have no idea how old, as I’m not sure the aging process of such animals, but he has had a bit of gray around his nose for as long as I’ve known him. I’d say that makes him fairly old, no matter in what years you are counting. He is also extremely, well, fat. There’s no way around it. Poor guy’s been eating the stale bagel crumbs from behind Krausers for years. He can’t get his belly up off the curb in front without pumping his short little legs, running in place for a while before something catches and he can propel his large belly forward. Lastly, he is incredibly slow. I am unsure if it is because his weight slows him down, or that he just actually doesn’t care enough to hurry. I’ve stood, looming over him as he sat contentedly munching leaves in my garden, brandishing a large broom and yelling only to have him blink his little black eyes at me, finish chewing, and meander away.
My eggplants are his favorite. He nibbles all the leaves in a circular pattern, and he nips the flowers off of the string bean vines. The little devil has preferences. It drives me insane. He will not be kept out. Cinnamon doesn’t bother him. I think he actually enjoys the smell of toothpaste. Every summer I have a new trick, a new barrier, a new plan for Newman’s removal, and every year that damn, fat groundhog outsmarts me- shiny purple, baby eggplants raised high in his clawed fist.
This year, I have been watching, garden hose in hand, for the appearance of Newman. We have a big, luscious garden this year due to all the rain and I knew it would be too tempting for him to pass up. I waited and waited. But Newman never came.
I was oddly heart- sick. Did he die? Was he ill? Did he eat something poisonous, finally? Did the ASPCA find him and take him out to the country so he could be eaten by bobcats? As a writer, a teacher and an avid reader, all of a sudden I realized that every good story needs a conflict. Remove the conflict, there is no story. No hope of redemption. No hope at all. Newman was my conflict man. Now he was gone, and my story was greatly affected.
The past few weeks have been pretty hard. Illness and financial hardship, car trouble, broken appliances and leaks that seem to have no origins. A wrestling with what parenthood looks like for us, and what it might always be. A brokenness in my spirit, a deep feeling of inadequacy and a wondering if I’ll ever really be healed from the anxiety that seems to get worse with my age.
I wish I was a deep thinker. I wish I could have read systematic theological texts and poured over Spurgeon and Edwards and Lewis and that God grabbed hold of my heart by the strength of their words, the validity of their truth. But no. He had to use a stupid, fat gopher to teach me about conflict in a good story. From the beginning, there was conflict. There has never been a God story without conflict, in fact. A good/God story is nothing without conflict- it doesn’t teach a lesson, it doesn’t empathize, it doesn’t carve out a secret place in your heart. In order to have a good story, a heroic, epic, story, we need the conflict to rise above it. We need the conflict to see around our circumstances into the truth of who we are. We need the conflict so that we know we need Jesus. We need the maddening, the turmoil, the angst, the frustration, the sadness, the loneliness, the brokenness. We need Newman.
I needed Newman.
That pisser showed up right as I was lamenting his profound place in my life. Walked right passed me to take a bite out of my eggplant. Before I threw my flip-flop at him in a tumultuous combination of rage and relief, I said a brief prayer of thanks. I am trying to be thankful for the conflict in my life that allows me to see Jesus.
I want my story to be a good one.
Don’t you?
