Cross-Grassers

Having spent much of my adulthood on college campuses, I’ve often been faced with the grassy moral imperative—to tread on or not to tread. At Methodist College in NC it wasn’t really a moral choice as the grass and trees were robust and never seemed to falter. At BYU the moral choice was quickly covered up and hidden away: If a path formed across the grass, the mighty facility crew would cover it up with a new sidewalk the next day, creating a crisscross of sidewalks alighting the most expeditious routes: “We have no sin, no alcohol, no sex and no grass-crossers.”

I looked askew at the grass-crossers at the Y. How could they ruin the unblemished grass, causing much work and chaos at our beautiful campus? How selfish to save a few minutes and ruin everyone else’s day. But that was years ago, a rough draft of beliefs revised thousands of times since. Recently I’ve taken it upon myself to cross as much grass as possible at SLCC. I like the soft impact and life of grass over concrete—whose natural self doesn’t? Certainly I realize our grass isn’t really natural as it requires gallons of water and is merely an adopted practice of the English, but it’s symbolic I suppose: a freshness, a mini-visceral experience as I cross the quad and put to rest for a moment my intellectual positions and pedagogies.

My grass-crossing does have rules. I do not cross where the grass has died out exposing dirt (though my rules do allow for jumping across said sections of dirt); if I’m already walking with someone, I suggest but do not pressure them into the forbidden crossing; when alone I always cross even if some big wig is coming down the sidewalk—it’s not a shifting moral context; I do not merely clip corners—my grass-crossing must be direct and bold.

I often imagine, maybe even hope, that someone, a fellow teacher or, even better, an administrator, will reprimand me for my grass crossing. I have a river of replies: “You know we live in a desert” or “I only walk where no one has ever walked before” or “I’m paying for this damn grass and water and I’m going to enjoy it” or “If the grass dies we can always xeriscape the whole of it and save millions.”

One might think grass-crossers do not respect life but this view accepts the topsy-turvy logic of the modern repressed world. To avoid is not to respect; to merely view with awe the nature, our nature, our animal selves from afar is to fear. Pre-packaged "foundational" selves offered at low prices from marketers, religions, and workplace institutions are held up on scaffoldings of rules, regulations, and prohibitions. To cross through the grass, to engage the sin and live, that IS our great moral imperative.