There’s a springtime sledding hill in downtown Chattanooga
This hill sits behind a Starbucks overlooking the Tennessee River. It’s steep but small.
During the spring, the grass on the hill is Irish-countryside green. Standing out from the grey-brown city it resides in. It’s a strange awkward sort of a hill. It looks like it would have been quickly flattened by the construction of a growing city and yet, there it stands.
Out of pure curiosity, I looked into why the hill exists. After all, any reasonable city planner would have flattened it for parking spots.
As it turns out this hill was a pile of scrap metal and garbage, slowly accumulated over a few decades. When the city was revitalized, instead of trying to dig up and cart away all the trash, they covered it with about 20 feet of soil and grass seed and hoped it would fade into the background.
The hill did just the opposite.
During the fall and winter, it turns brown — the dead dried grass losing its moisture and color. As the grass dries and becomes brittle the hill becomes slick — almost as if it is snow-covered.
On any halfway nice fall day the hill is covered with kids. They carry sheets of cardboard up the sloping backside and barrel down the other on their makeshift sleds.
The hill looks like an anthill from far away. The kids swarm every side of the hump, carrying their cardboard to the top, jumping on and whooping as they rush down. The trash hill that was made to blend in, to just go away, now is a centerpiece for the community.
The scene is beautiful. The small hill in downtown Chattanooga is transformed from brown and lifeless to an endless source of joy. The dead grass becomes the catalyst for laughter. The dead hill contributes so much to the lives of the children — selflessly allowing its grass to be torn up and broken by endless impressions of size 3 shoes.
I love this hill. I love it, because it is awkward and out of place but somehow manages to bring so much joy.
Our ability to give has nothing to do with how unblemished or nice we appear. Our ability to give has nothing to do with how much we have.
Much like the lifeless brown trash hill, our joy-inducing, life-giving, heart-filling generosity comes only from our humility and selflessness, not our origin or appearance.
We contribute the most in our brokenness — not in our attempts for perfection.
