I Did Not Expect To Feel Anything

You filled that pot because you needed something to do with your hands.

That is the honest account of it. It was a flat stretch, the sort that does not have a name and does not qualify as anything, and somebody had given you the seeds months earlier and they were in a drawer.

You were not hopeful about it. You were not anything about it. It was a small distraction on a Sunday afternoon.

And then on Tuesday there was a green thing in it, and something happened in your chest that was completely out of scale with a bean.

You are not overreacting to a shoot, and a large feeling arriving in a flat stretch has never once been a thing to be suspicious of.

And the reason you are still thinking about it three days later is not the plant. It is the size of what happened.

Because you have been flat for a while. Not unwell, and not in any way that anybody has needed to notice. Just level. Things have been happening and you have been responding to them at about the right size and nothing has gone through you in months.

And then a bean did.

And that is disorienting, and I think it has made you slightly wary rather than glad, and that is the thing I want to get at.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy

There is a line in Psalm 126 that puts two things together in a way people usually soften.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. (Psalm 126:5 and 6, King James Version)

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Now, notice the condition of the sower. He goes out weeping. He is not hopeful, he is not in good spirits, he is not doing this out of an abundance of anything.

He is doing it while in a bad stretch, and the psalm does not ask him to feel differently before he goes.

You are not required to be in good condition before putting something in soil, and Scripture has never once asked a person to be hopeful first. Psalm 126:6 has a man going out weeping and sowing anyway, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman who filled a pot because her hands needed occupying.

And the joy in that psalm is not proportionate to the mood he set out in. That is the whole point of the pairing. He goes out weeping and comes back rejoicing, and nothing in between is described.

The return is disproportionate to the departure, and the psalm presents that as how it goes rather than as an anomaly.

You are inside a pattern the psalm treats as ordinary, and a disproportionate gladness has never once been out of keeping with how that verse describes things. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings back more than went out, and the written word puts the tears and the joy in one sentence without any explanation of the change.

And there is the word doubtless, which is unusual and worth noticing. Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing.

That is the psalmist putting weight on it. Not maybe. Not in some cases. It is stated with emphasis, in the middle of a line about somebody weeping.

You are dealing with something stated with emphasis rather than offered tentatively, and a promise about joy has never once been hedged in that verse. The Spirit of God is the one who stands behind the word doubtless, and the word puts the emphasis in the middle of a sentence about somebody going out in tears.

Wary is the wrong response

Let me name what has been happening since Tuesday, because something has been getting done to it.

It has been getting examined rather than had.

Something large arrived, and instead of simply being glad, a question started: what does it mean that a bean did that. Am I more fragile than I thought. Is something wrong that a small thing could move me that much.

That is the flatness reasserting itself, and it is doing it in the form of an inquiry.

You are inspecting a good thing rather than receiving it, and a question about a gladness has never once been the same as the gladness. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person have something without analyzing it, and Psalm 126:5 states the reaping in joy without asking anybody to account for the size of it.

And here is what I think is actually true about the size, and I offer it rather than insist on it.

A flat stretch is not a stretch with no feeling in it. It is a stretch with feeling that is not getting through. The capacity does not go anywhere. It waits.

So a large response to a small event is not a sign of fragility. It is much more likely a sign that something has been waiting for somewhere to go, and a green thing on a windowsill turned out to be a small enough door to get through.

You are not looking at evidence of fragility, and a big response to a small thing has never once been proof that a person is in poor condition. The Spirit of God is the one who opens a door that is small enough to use, and the written word has a man coming back with far more than he carried out.

Look at it as long as you want

So here is the assignment, and it is almost nothing and it will be harder than it sounds.

Let yourself look at it for as long as you want to, once, without cutting it short.

Go to the sill. Look at it. And when the moment arrives where you would normally move on, because you have looked at it long enough and there are things to do, do not move on.

You are able to stay in front of something a while longer than usual, and an extra minute at a windowsill has never once been time that somebody had to justify. Psalm 126:5 puts the reaping in joy without measuring it, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that sill while a woman stays put.

Here is what has been happening and why this is the exercise.

It has been getting cut short. Every time. A look, and something starts to rise, and then something else says all right, and the next thing gets done instead.

That is the flatness managing the input. It is not deliberate and nobody is doing it on purpose, and it is why a thing that got through on Tuesday has not got through since.

Let one occasion run its full length. That is all this is.

You are able to let a good thing run to its own end, and a feeling allowed to finish has never once been a feeling that had to be indulged. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the part after a person would usually have moved on, and the word describes a return with rejoicing and does not ask how long it lasted.

And do not do anything with it afterward. No conclusion, no working out what it means. Look at it, and then go and get on with the day.