Hello #3: Burden or Delight? • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 1

Hello South Carolina #3: Burden or Delight?When I arrived at our new office the first time, to meet the owners and the two realtors, I was aware of how unkempt it was, horticulturally.

I brushed it aside and went in to meet all the new faces. There were three alpha males in the room overpowering the two young salesmen trying to find their place in the storm of testosterone.

When the traditional male rituals subsided, the two tried to ease their way back into the conversation. Greyson was thinking about our transition and volunteered a number of resources that were available so we could start fast.

One of which is that the owner knows someone who would care for the lawn for $50 a month.

I smiled inside.

Not happening!

That was going to be MY personal play space.

It took me back to when my parents went to the mission field decades ago. The plot of land the mis-sion had was several acres and in the tropical rain forest, grass grew ferociously.

And needed to be cut with regularity.

Usually that was the job of the hired help, with their machetes and the rhythmic, long strokes. But for a season the mission had to economize significantly, and it was up to the missionaries to mow the lawn with our 24” push mower.

The area was divided up among the available adults, and I jumped in at 4 years old, adamant that I needed to have a plot assigned to me.

Eventually, intransigence won over logic and I was allotted a patch to mow.

Mom told me years later how intriguing it was that I would work so hard on the

Hello #3: Burden or Delight? • by Arthur Burk • Sapphire Leadership Group, LLC • www.TheSLG.com • 2

lawn, trying to push a mower whose handles were at about ear height. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t required of me. But I was GONNA do it.

Because I wanted to.

Not much has changed. I still love mowing the lawn.

It has been a LOT of years since I had a lawn to mow. But soon, I will again. The “lawn” is the size of some people’s living room, but it will be mine, with intensity, mowed with tenderness and precision.

The shrubs will be trimmed and fertilized.

And in the back corner, there will be an assiduously developed compost pile, unlike any other in Spar-tanburg County!

And within a year, the earthworm population will have quintupled and the benefit to the land and the lawn will be immense.

I am really going to enjoy getting some dirt under my fingernails in Spartanburg, SC.

Can’t wait to get there.

Copyright August 2018 by Arthur Burk