Lori Alexander on Lawns. Yes, Lawns.

[ohnomoe]

This is Lori at her most bizarre but at least advocating for neat lawns is mostly harmless, right? Better than advocating financially unstable young kids to start huge families, or telling women to blindly follow their husbands?

[PennySycamore]

One of my friends got in trouble with her homeowners association some years ago not for not mowing her lawn, but for having a swing set in the yard that was visible from the street. Her house was on a corner lot. Every part of her yard was visible from the street.

Sumeri, are good storm windows acceptable to your town? I was just reading on RetroRenovation that good storm are a better way to deal with old windows that are replacements. Any damage to the old windows can be repaired and good storms installed and what you end up with is better than replacement windows. I've read similar comments on Houzz.

[miffy]

Homeowners associations sound awful! What happens in spring when your lawn can go from being neatly cut on monday to grown out on friday?

[Joan of Snarc]

I know of a more frivolous "ministry" than Lori's lawn care. The other day, I ran into a woman whose children I had heard play at a piano recital recently. I complimented the girls piano skills and she mentioned that her husband had recently taken up playing the electric guitar "as a ministry, to serve The Lord." He had always wanted to learn to play, so now he can shred 4 Jesus! Sounds a lot better than helping the sick and poor, doesn't it?

:angry-banghead:

[Chasingthedog]

SO DUMB.

Pretty fucking sure that if there is a God, he doesn't want us planting invasive, non-native species, utilizing precious resources to MAINTAIN those species, and using fossil fuels that harm God's earth maintaining.

Look at nature, you fucking moron--beautiful, awe-inspiring, but NOT ORDERLY. I can't even with this.

[Stephanie66]

I wrote:

Maybe to be good witnesses, if you see someone is having problems with their yard, you could ask them if they are having health problems. Thankfully, I went through my chemotherapy over the winter, but it would have been much harder during the summer. I was pretty worn out and sick. Maybe someone in the neighborhood could provide a "ministry" to take care of his or her lawn until he or she is better!

[Minerva]

I know of a more frivolous "ministry" than Lori's lawn care. The other day, I ran into a woman whose children I had heard play at a piano recital recently. I complimented the girls piano skills and she mentioned that her husband had recently taken up playing the electric guitar "as a ministry, to serve The Lord." He had always wanted to learn to play, so now he can shred 4 Jesus! Sounds a lot better than helping the sick and poor, doesn't it?

:angry-banghead:

At what point does it cease to genuinely be a ministry, and is just you slapping the label of "ministry" on whatever the hell you decide to do? I can see calling your music a ministry, because that reaches people. But lawn care? Unless you're cutting Bible verses into your lawn, calling it a ministry is a stretch.

[Three and Done]

Lawns?? Christ on a cracker... Ha she run out of things to make a "ministry" of or what? :evil-eye:

What's next? The type of fricking soap you use to wash yourself with?

[Lissa1481]

I hate having an hoa and if/when we move, will not go where there is one. We got a fine notice two summers ago because of weeds in our lawn, we had sprayed all sorts of shit on them but nothing was working. Our neighborhood was incomplete and there was a three foot tall field of weeds next to us which was never mowed. We took pictures of our kids next to the field (to show height) and mailed them in with a letter stating we would not pay the fine if the hoa couldn't control the field. We never did pay the fine. The following spring it was mowed and they built houses down the rest of the street. Our yard looks much better now.

[salex]

Lawns?? Christ on a cracker... Ha she run out of things to make a "ministry" of or what? :evil-eye:

What's next? The type of fricking soap you use to wash yourself with?

Well, Since you asked....

holyhoney.com/fosobar.html

[Kimberly86]

What about us of that don't even have yards? And live in apartments?

[GeoBQn]

I assume that for apartments, we should keep our doors neat and decorate it with a tasteful wreath or Jesus quote.

[miffy]

:lol:

[miffy]

I assume that for apartments, we should keep our doors neat and decorate it with a tasteful wreath or Jesus quote.

G-d has laid it upon me to tell you the jesus quote should have blindingly bright multicoloured LED rope lighting around it.

[happy atheist]

So I can tell someone's religion by their lawn? What kind of bushes does an atheist lawn have? What about a Wiccan?

This atheist has, perhaps ironically, several Burning Bushes. :dance:

[NurseNell]

I'm a little confused by some of the replies here. Is there an actual law in the US that says you have to mow your lawn? As in, this is something you can actually go to prison for not doing? Because that is quite possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever heard in my life. :shock:

You can't go to prison, perhaps to jail for a night or two but definitely a big fine. I guess the lawn nazis in my new town turn in people pretty regularly. In the city where I used to live the city workers would report the lawns that needed mowing. You were given a certain amount of time to mow, if you didn't the city did and sent you a bill. It's the same with snow on the sidewalks in the winter. 24 hours to shovel or plow, then you're fined.

Homeowners Associations are ruled by whatever the association says, everyone signs a contract so you can't plead you don't know.

[Dinorah]

Yes, ending up in jail for a lawn sounds really bizarre to me too. Don't people have something better to do that to complain about someone else's lawn, unless it's so bad there's some potential health hazard.

Anyway, fundies seem to consider everything a "ministry": tending a lawn, wearing a skirt. I think it takes attention away from potential actual mininstries that demand some effort, such as doing something to help others.

[Evilbad]

I always thought maintaining your yard was just being a nice neighbor, as we have some in our neighborhood who clearly don't give a crap that their overgrown weed farm is blowing over into our yards, and it's just rude.

It's frustrating when DH and I have spent a lot of time on our yard, making it look nice because we like to come home to a nice home and yard, and have this horrible mass of weeds and debris in the house next door. We finally did call the city about it because there were all sorts of critters living in it. Now they just mow it down every couple of months. No picking up the trash or anything. I won't be sad to see them move, honestly.

And no, we don't use chemicals or anything, we pull weeds by hand and when we moved in, had to dig up a good portion of the front yard due to a dandelion spread. Our animals and kids play in the yard, I don't want weed killer all over the place.

[Sumeri]

One of my friends got in trouble with her homeowners association some years ago not for not mowing her lawn, but for having a swing set in the yard that was visible from the street. Her house was on a corner lot. Every part of her yard was visible from the street.

Sumeri, are good storm windows acceptable to your town? I was just reading on RetroRenovation that good storm are a better way to deal with old windows that are replacements. Any damage to the old windows can be repaired and good storms installed and what you end up with is better than replacement windows. I've read similar comments on Houzz.

I'll have to look into this! I do have storms, but they're the kind that you have to screw on and off in winter and spring, and they're the biggest PIA you can imagine. The problem we have is that we have so MANY windows, of all different sizes. The historic committee would be fine with replacements, they just have to match the old exactly and there is not a window in our house that is a standard size.

[scc12]

I take it Lori must have neighbors with a bad lawn.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I have something in my garden, just for you Lori

http://metro.co.uk/2012/07/23/police-or ... sh-505884/

[2xx1xy1JD]

Has it occurred to Lori that the Bible is dealing with actual fields for, ya know, growing crops? The quote makes sense in that context - if you neglect your field and your crops don't grow, you don't have food. Because I'm pretty sure that manicured lawns for show did not exist in semi-arid Israel 2,500 years ago.

The only possible logic to Lori's argument is if you say that anything you do to make a good impression = ministry. To be fair, I do remember hearing a criticism of another religious group once along the lines of "they don't take care of their lawns and houses", so hypothetically if Christians were known for being so distracted by other religious concerns that they neglected their laws, and therefore tended to be hated by their neighbors, it could harm community relations and outreach efforts.

[GeoBQn]

I take it Lori must have neighbors with a bad lawn.

Lori's neighbors can probably provide inspiration for many posts.

"Garden gnomes are idolatrous."

"Halloween decorations are not Christ-honoring, and you can help train the neighborhood children by passing out tracts instead of candy."

"You are not loving your neighbors as yourself when you don't invite them to your outdoor BBQ."

[AnywhereButHere]

Lori would consider me a complete lost soul. My yard gets mowed when my husband has time. We both work full time, and he works around the clock, so it gets done when it gets done. We don't have an HOA, but we do have some overly interested neighbors and a rather judgy mailman. Our mailman complained about the state of our lawn to my father-in-law who lives across the street. Seriously, he tattled on us. I'm not too sure what he expected my father-in-law to do - spank us? We're not that kind of family. :twisted: The grass was a little long but hardly tangled jungle territory. It's not like "mean green mothers from outer space" were going to leap out of the overgrowth to drag him away, never to be heard from again.

[dairyfreelife]

"You are not loving your neighbors as yourself when you don't invite them to your outdoor BBQ."

Ooh...passive aggressive. That's soo Lori's style.