Somebody pray: I work on Sundays.

Today I was working down at the farm when a nice sized slew of customers drove in to buy roses. I was working between cutting grass and installing a drip-irrigation system when I saw a 50-something woman wandering aimlessly through the greenhouses. I approached her and asked if she needed help finding anything or had any questions. She would turn out to be a muse for a blog, and a very strange person.

Have you ever been in a situation where you knew you were better off keeping your mouth shut, and did so with a smile and a lie? If you have, then you will understand completely my situation today. Lots of people ask me, when they come to the rose farm, if I have any goals or if landscaping and farming is what I want to do with my life. So I'm looked down upon already and I have decided that opening my mouth (if you know me at all) will probably make matters worse. Therefore, I sit and take it, to be frank. Does it bother me that I get questions like that? No, because I actually am enjoying what I do, and am damn proud to be busting my ass pulling 12 hour days because someone needs my help. I have found that my response to things is, at times, very offensive, elitist, and black-hearted. Whoops. Today, a woman asked me this question and I replied by telling her a little bit of my story. This was the beginning of my "grin and bare it" afternoon. I told her that I had been enrolled in college, and that I stopped going to pursue a performing arts endeavor in South Africa. She immediately asked if it was "missions based." I responded by telling her that I was on no mission to do anything except for living. She then inquired as to the purpose of the 13th Floor ministry. I informed her that we did productions geared toward relevant issues in today's culture and society. "Well it was geared towards the youth, I assume," she replied. I tried to explain to her that when dealing with any kind of message, anyone can get something out of anything "based on the context of the message and what they derive from it. People can take the meanings of things based on their situation and apply them accordingly. Basically, one can make anything apply to themselves somehow, and can sometimes make things that weren't necessarily saying something, say something to them." I also mentioned some contextual criticism and how things that were mentioned in biblical text aren't exactly literal for us and we should take things and apply them in new ways. "Well, unfortunately some people actually do that," she said. Instead of my jaw dropping, I wired it shut. I told her of the downfall of the team and she proposed that it was God planting a seed in me. Honestly, it was all I could do not to make some crack about immaculate conception, or Jehovah getting me knocked up. She told me about "seeds" that God planted in her when she was "my age" and how they are just now being cultivated in her soul. A) What the hell? Cultivated in her soul? If you want Christianity to work, don't scare people off. Please leave your stupid ass metaphors at home. Again, really wanted to ask her if I could have whatever she was on. B) Not everything works out for some awesome, divine, life-changing reason, and thats ok. Just live and let live.

When someone is set in their ways, to the point where you would think they were actually screwing Jesus, I will keep my mouth shut. When someone is lost and looking for anything at all, I will keep my mouth shut. When someone is lukewarm, I will not spit them out. My mouth will have been closed the whole time, and I will not have had the opportunity to put them in my mouth (gross anyway).

Ok, so the funny and strange part. She finally asked for my name and told me that I was a very pleasant young man to converse with. This is probably because I did not voice my true (nor any) opinion on anything that we discussed and was quiet as a child should be. I went on my way to cut some more grass, and as she was driving out of the farm, she parked right outside the gate. I sincerely hoped she wasn't going to try to talk to me because I was very busy listening to my devil music and massacring grass. I quickly turned my back and started sinning in the other direction (I was working on a Sunday, dragging a Marlboro, and listening to music that said 'shit' and 'damn'). Out of the corner on my eye, I saw a flash. She was actually Jesus! Yay, guilty church story ending! No. She was taking pictures. Not of the roses or barns or cars going by, but of me. She was taking lots of pictures. I left the grass un-mowed and got out of there as soon as I could. I turned one last time to see if she was gone. Her face still stuck to her camera: Her camera still stuck on me. Evidently, she is in a painting group. They paint portraits and real-life stuff.

So, with me keeping my mouth shut, she will probably paint me cutting grass for Jesus, with a divine aura surrounding me. Perhaps, she will paint Jesus walking beside me, stopping traffic as I mow the roadsides. Best case scenario: A canvas with me cutting grass in the nude goes on eBay for 20 bucks.