I want to tell you what Jesus has done for me. We’ll have to wait a moment until those who know me regain consciousness. Now say “hay-soos” or for the linguists among us: “xe.sus.” I know I am being juvenile about this but I love it that I have a gardener named Jesus. He has cause my yard to be born again, creating something between a labyrinth and a London park.

It all started when my electric lawnmower died and did not resurrect. At the time I couldn’t afford a new one and after a season or two without one, decided I didn’t want a lawnmower. I liked the wild field design, otherwise known as the lazy homeowner look. One of its drawbacks was having to tromp through wet grass a foot high to get across the yard. Over the years however, paths formed like ancient elephant thoroughfares. Last fall I covered the paths with cardboard to make it easier come spring to scoop out the turf.

Easier for whom was the question. It was too hard for me in any case. Tim my friend whose presence in my garden is chronicled in Burn Before Weeding could have scooped out the paths but he had other things to do in the garden and the paths were really my project.

Jesus came into my life just when I needed him most. He shoveled slowly but steadily and the ancient paths are now reified until a developer buys my property over my dead body and builds a condo unit. The heaps of sod formed mounds that my neighbor Bill said made the yard look like a burial ground. But I planted wildflower and butternut squash seeds in them and eventually it won’t look as though something nefarious is going down in the garden. Jesus emptied six huge garbage bags of sawdust, another contribution from Bill who is a woodworker, into the paths, smoothing out a four inch padding of orange chippy dust which now gets tracked into the house by people and elephants.

My students love the paths. A few of them make a regular pilgrimage to Winston’s grave, now marked with a trillium. My resident crows, Bert and Zelda, strut along the paths and climb onto the mounds to rob me of earthworms and the occasional butternut squash seed. Neighborhood cats wander the ancient ways. Artemis, of course, poses.

Jesus has showered me with blessings. He has made straight the narrow paths that lead to green pastures. He healed the crab grass and weeds under the camellia and the tree peony. He cleaned up the mess around the mock orange. This is critical because this is the part of the garden I stare at when I am teaching and need to take a deep breath and not say something ugly like “Two counts, for fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to say it, can’t you see that note is not colored in?” That sort of thing.

I saved Jesus’ number to my phone so when he calls I can tell anyone in ear shot that Jesus is calling. If my mother were alive, I could tell her “Jesus is coming,” she would happily agree and we could have a conversation about religion without yelling at each other.