The desert of southern New Mexico witnessed my first efforts at gardening.  In the very small village at the border where we lived, most folks landscaped their yards to complement the dry environment, practicing xeriscape before it became popular.  Some insisted on a lawn, at least in the front yard.  The yard of the house we  bought  boasted some struggling grass, so we watered it regularly, and tried to weed it.

So, there I was, yanking dandelions, rag weed and tumbleweeds.  Then I came upon this little bitty “something,”  and gave it a sharp pull: the little “something” pulled right back.  I soaked it while weeding all around it, then when the dirt around it was soft, I yanked again.  Again, it yanked back.  So I loosened the dirt around it, and tried again.  Nothing doing.  The leaves were a bit mangled by then, but the tap root held firm.  To make a long story short, I decided to cut off all the green stuff and as much of the root that I could reach, and hoped for the best.  A few weeks later, there it was again, grinning at me.  I just mowed over it.

That little “something,” I discovered, was a baby mesquite bush.  That pesky bush loved the alkaline water that our poor grass barely tolerated (the “lawn” always looked like it was on its last legs), and we just learned to live with it.  Its bigger brothers, that lived undisturbed in our back yard, thrived despite our neglect:  no water for them, no sir!  And next to them the ever-present tumbleweeds sprouted, turned brown and blew away.  Mesquite and Tumbleweed: two desert dwellers with vastly different habits:  one lives on, digging into the hard and stingy ground to find the water it needs to survive; the other rolls with the wind.

I grew to love mesquite. Walking around the desert, we would run into the twisted, gray roots of long gone bushes:  roots so much bigger than the slender trunks of the plant!  We always brought them home.  There is no end to the use of those strong, dense and twisted roots!  Polished, they can be fashioned into furniture, bowls, and other objects: the rich hue and colorful grain shine brightly when oiled.  The smaller roots, when burned, gave the best flavor to barbecue, while a bigger one would burn all night in the “earth stove” that heated our home.

Those incredibly powerful roots of the mesquite are the secret of its survival in the most adverse climate.  I found out that the tap root of this little shrub is persistent, digging into the ground up to 190 feet  (that’s right feet!!!) to find the water it needs to survive: no wonder it defeated my puny efforts at extermination!  This plant commands respect.  Range cattle eat its sweet pods, and when ground into flour they can be baked into bread, cakes and cookies.  Bees feed at its yellow flowers and those blessed roots add nitrogen to the soil.

On the other hand, the silly, useless, ugly tumbleweed has practically no root.  The species survives because each prickly plant produces “bijillions” of seeds (actually, about 250,000 per plant), which scatter all over the desert wherever the mother plant “tumbles” after death.  I’m sure that everyone who has driven through Eastern Colorado has seen the unsightly skeletons as they cross the highways this and that way, according to the whim of the winds.

Where on earth am I going with this?  To our deep Catholic roots, of course!  The roots of our wonderful Faith are even deeper than the mesquite’s.  Over the centuries there had been efforts at extermination:  have you noticed how every time that a tyrant comes to power anywhere in the world, the first thing he does is kill the priests to scatter their flocks?  But that’s about as effective as my efforts at destroying that little bush by chopping off the top.  Hah!  The tap root of our Church is well planted into the Water of Life, and will never be extinguished:  all we have to do is to hold on to our origins, and we will stand firm, providing spiritual shelter, food and warmth to humanity as it wanders through the desert of this world.

On the other hand, the “practically rootless” tumbleweed thrives in soil that has been disrupted and in neglected gardens, providing shelter for mice and other pests.  As if the tumbling did not disseminate enough seeds, it is also spreads through the manure of cattle who may eat its spiny stems before they become too dry to chew.  This noxious weed needs almost no moisture and crowds out good crops like alfalfa and other grains.

Now, doesn’t that sound like the ideas of this world, which proliferate in great number, wander hither and yon without a goal, and germinate in the souls that have not been nourished by the Word of the Lord and His Sacraments?  These ideas spring up out of nowhere without any sound basis, attract a lot of attention by their sheer numbers, and last only as long as the prevailing wind propels them forward.  When the wind changes, they reverse their direction, but invariably end up in a huge waste pile, where they are burned as they most certainly deserve to be.

Meanwhile, I bet my little mesquite bush is still thriving in our old yard, in the New Mexican desert.