I Fill The Season With Projects

Every winter you take something on.

Last year it was the fence. The year before it was the inside of the garage, and before that there was a course, and this year there is already a thing lined up for January that you have been describing to people as something that needs doing.

And it does need doing. That is the part that makes this difficult to see, because every single one of these has been a genuine job.

You are able to let the quiet arrive, and a still hour has never once been an hour that a man had to survive.

But notice the timing.

They always arrive at the same point in the year. Not spread through it. Not in the busy months, when a man might reasonably say he has no time. They arrive in the window when the ground stops and there would otherwise be nothing.

That is not a coincidence and you have known it was not for a while.

And I am not going to pretend I know what you are avoiding, because I do not and it would be presumptuous. But you know, or you half know, and that is the part of this article that you will have to supply.

Better is an handful with quietness

There is a line in Ecclesiastes that weighs two things against each other and comes down in an unexpected place.

Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit. (Ecclesiastes 4:6, King James Version)

Better is an handful with quietness.

Now, notice that the comparison is not between having something and having nothing. Both hands are full in the second case. There is more in the second case.

The verse is not preferring less because less is humble. It is preferring less with quietness over more with a particular kind of trouble.

You are being offered a comparison in which the smaller portion wins on other grounds, and quietness has never once been rated in that verse as a consolation for having less. Ecclesiastes 4:6 puts quietness on the scale as a thing with weight, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man with a January project already lined up.

And look at the phrase on the other side. Travail and vexation of spirit.

Travail is hard work, which is honest enough. But vexation of spirit is not about the work at all. It is about a state in the person doing it. Something churning.

So the thing being weighed against quietness is not busyness. It is busyness with something running underneath it.

You are able to be genuinely occupied and genuinely churning at the same time, and hard work has never once been the same thing as a quiet man. The Holy Spirit is the one who distinguishes the work from the state underneath it, and the written word names both hands full alongside a vexed spirit rather than treating them as opposites.

And that is worth sitting with, because your winters are full and they are not quiet, and the verse says those two can coexist and that the combination is the worse deal.

You are able to have both hands full and nothing settled, and a January with a fence in it has never once been the same as a January with quietness in it. Ecclesiastes 4:6 names travail and vexation together rather than treating them as the same thing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who tells a man which of the two he actually has.

You are not getting the thing you are paying for, and a full winter has never once delivered what a quiet one would have. The Spirit of God is the one who offers the handful with quietness, and the word says better rather than acceptable.

The projects are working

Let me be fair to the projects, because I do not want this to be an argument you can dismiss.

They work. That is why you keep doing it.

A man with a fence to build has a shape to his January. He has a reason to go out, a thing to think about in the evening, an answer when somebody asks what he has been doing. The quiet does not get in because there is no gap for it to get in through.

That is not a failure of strategy. It is a good strategy and it has succeeded every winter for years.

You are running something that works rather than something broken, and a strategy that has held for years has never once been a strategy anybody should be ashamed of. The Holy Spirit is the one who does not shame a man for a defense that was doing its job, and Ecclesiastes 4:6 simply weighs one thing against another without condemning either.

And here is the only problem with it, and it is not a moral one.

The thing it keeps out is not going anywhere. Whatever is waiting in the quiet has been waiting for several winters now, and each successful winter is another year of it waiting.

A defense that works perfectly means the thing behind it never gets dealt with, and it is not aging well.

You are keeping something out rather than out of it, and a thing successfully avoided has never once gone away while it was being avoided. The Spirit of God is the one who is present with what a man has been keeping at a distance, and the written word puts quietness on the scale rather than leaving it out of the reckoning.

One hour with nothing arranged

So here is the assignment, and the number is larger than anything else on this site, and that is deliberate.

Sit out there for one hour with nothing arranged.

An hour. In the cold, with a coat on, in a chair. No phone, no radio, no job half started nearby that could be got on with.

You are able to give an hour to a thing that produces nothing, and sixty minutes of quiet has never once been sixty minutes that a man lost. Ecclesiastes 4:6 rates the handful with quietness above two hands full, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there in the cold with a man in a chair.

Now, I want to be honest about why an hour and not ten minutes.

Ten minutes can be waited out. A man can hold his breath for ten minutes, metaphorically, and nothing arrives, and he goes in and reports that nothing happened.

An hour cannot be waited out. Somewhere in the middle of it the quiet actually gets in, and whatever has been waiting arrives, and that is the whole purpose of the assignment.

You are giving a thing long enough to actually arrive, and an hour has never once been more than a man could sit through. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the part where it arrives rather than only in the sitting down, and the word names a vexation of spirit, which is the sort of thing that surfaces when the hands stop.

And when it arrives, do not solve it. Do not make a plan about it. Just let it be there in the cold with you for the rest of the hour, and then go in.

This is not a therapy exercise and I am not qualified to give one. It is an hour in a chair. But it is an hour with the door open, which is the thing that has been missing for several winters.