My Courtyard Is In Shade All Day

The sun does not come into your courtyard.

Not at any point in the day, not at any time of year. The buildings are too close and too high, and the light that reaches down there is the light that has bounced off something else on its way.

You have looked into this properly, which is why you know it and are not guessing.

And everything you read says full sun. Six hours. Eight for the good stuff. And there is always a note about how shade is a limitation to be worked around.

So your conclusion is that the place you live has been disqualified.

You are not disqualified by shade, and a place out of the sun has never once been a place with nothing in it.

Let me put the obvious thing to you before anything else, and I would like you to actually go and check it.

Something is already growing in that courtyard.

There will be moss on the north side. There will be something in the crack where the wall meets the paving. There will be a thing in a gutter or along the base of a downpipe that has been there for years and that nobody planted.

None of that asked anybody's permission and none of it read the note about six hours.

The sparrow hath found an house

There is a line in Psalm 84 that finds a home in a place nobody was offering one.

Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God. (Psalm 84:3, King James Version)

The sparrow hath found an house.

Now, notice the verb. Found. Not been given. Not been allocated. The sparrow went about the business of being a sparrow and located something, and the psalm records it with a kind of pleasure.

You are able to find something rather than waiting to be given it, and a place has never once had to be designated before somebody found it. Psalm 84:3 uses the word found, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a small bird in an old psalm land on a man in a shaded courtyard.

And look at where she found it. Even thine altars.

That is not a spot laid out for nesting. That is the working furniture of the temple, and a bird has put a nest in it, and the psalmist looks at that and is delighted rather than scandalized.

The point is that the location was not designed for the purpose and it turned out to serve anyway.

You are looking at a place that was never laid out for growing things and that has never once been prevented from doing it. The Holy Spirit is the one who is pleased by a thing making use of what was not built for it, and the written word puts the nest right in the altars without a word of complaint.

And there is one more thing in there. A nest for herself, where she may lay her young.

That is not shelter. That is a future. She is not sitting out the weather in there, she is raising a family in it. The unsuitable place is where the next generation happens.

You are not looking at a place fit only for waiting in, and a spot that was never meant for it has never once been limited to being temporary. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a full life happen in an unlikely location, and the word says where she may lay her young rather than where she may shelter.

Full sun is a category, not a requirement

Let me be practical about those numbers, because they are being read as a law and they are not one.

Full sun is a category. It describes what a particular group of plants wants, and that group is heavily overrepresented in everything written about gardening because it contains the tomatoes and the roses and most of what gets photographed.

It does not describe what plants in general need. A very large number of the plants on this earth evolved on a forest floor and have never had six hours of direct sun in their entire evolutionary history.

You have been reading a description of one category as a rule about all of them, and a preference published for tomatoes has never once been a law about growing. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a description from a requirement, and Psalm 84:3 finds a home in a place nobody had listed as suitable.

And here is what a shaded courtyard actually is, described honestly rather than by what it lacks.

It is stable. The temperature does not swing the way it does in an open space. It does not dry out in an afternoon. It is sheltered from wind, which kills more container plants than shade ever has. And the light that does come in is even, which means things grow straight rather than leaning.

Those are the conditions that a great many things want and cannot get in a sunny yard.

You are holding a set of conditions rather than an absence of one, and a sheltered even place has never once been the same thing as a poor one. The Spirit of God is the one who made the conditions before anybody assessed them, and the written word records the sparrow's found house with pleasure rather than with pity.

Sit down and see what is there

So here is the assignment, and it is not planting anything.

Sit in the courtyard for five minutes and notice what is already growing there.

Take a chair out or sit on the step. Five minutes. Look at the walls, the corners, the base of the downpipe, the joints in the paving.

You are able to look at a place instead of comparing it to a description, and five minutes sitting in a courtyard has never once been a wasted five minutes. Psalm 84:3 has a bird finding a house where nobody laid one out, and the Holy Spirit is the one on that step while a man looks at his own walls.

And count what is living. Actually count it. Moss counts. The thing in the crack counts. The fern that arrived on its own counts most of all, because a fern arriving somewhere is a fern telling you the conditions are right.

I would expect you to find somewhere between four and nine living things in a courtyard you have described to me as having nothing.

You are able to find life in a place already written off, and a courtyard has never once been empty simply because nobody planted anything in it. The Holy Spirit is the one who has been keeping things alive in there without anybody's involvement, and the word finds a nest in the altars and calls it good.

And do not plant anything today. Today is for finding out what your courtyard actually is, from the courtyard rather than from an article.