The Fallow Year And The Guilt Of It

You decided to leave it and now you feel bad every time you walk past.

That is the shape of it. The decision was sound. You know why you made it, you could explain it to anybody who asked, and you would make the same decision again.

And there is a thing in your chest, about a second long, every time you go by.

You are obeying rather than wasting, and ground left deliberately unworked has never once been ground anybody neglected.

Let me ask the question that I think will be useful, because guilt is always aimed at somebody and it is worth finding out at whom.

Who are you feeling guilty toward?

Not the ground, which has no view on the matter. Not your family, who are unaffected. Not a neighbor, though we will come back to that, because there is a version of this where a man is managing what somebody might think.

I suspect it is not a person at all. I suspect it is something closer to an idea about what a man with land does, and that idea has no address and cannot be answered, which is why it has been running unchallenged for months.

Let it rest and lie still

There is an instruction in Exodus about ground being left, and the grammar of it settles the whole question.

But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard. (Exodus 23:11, King James Version)

Thou shalt let it rest and lie still.

Now, notice that this is an instruction. Not a permission, not a concession for a hard year, not an allowance made for a man who cannot manage it.

Thou shalt. It is in the same voice as the rest of the commandments around it.

You are doing something that was commanded rather than tolerated, and unworked ground in the right year has never once been a failure to keep an instruction. Exodus 23:11 puts the resting in the imperative, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a man with a second of guilt at a fence line.

And notice the phrase lie still.

Not lie fallow, which is a technical term. Lie still, which is a phrase about an absence of activity and has no productivity implied in it anywhere.

The ground is not being asked to do something quietly. It is being asked to stop.

You are looking at a stopping rather than a hidden kind of work, and stillness in that verse has never once been given a job to do. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a thing genuinely stop, and the written word says lie still without attaching any purpose to the lying.

And there is something else in there, which is that the verse does give a reason, and the reason is not soil science.

That the poor of thy people may eat. The reason is other people. What grows unbidden in an unworked year is for somebody who has nothing.

You are keeping something that has a purpose you were never asked to manage, and ground left alone has never once been ground doing nothing for anybody. The Spirit of God is the one who arranges what happens on unworked ground, and the word names the poor and the beasts of the field rather than the yield.

Guilt at an idea

Let me go back to the question of whom, because I think it can be settled.

The idea is something like: a man with ground works it. A man who leaves ground standing is either lazy or has let something slip. And that is the sentence being passed every time you walk by, by nobody, on behalf of nobody.

You are being judged by something with no address, and an idea about what a man does has never once been a party that anybody could answer. The Holy Spirit is the one who identifies a voice that has no source, and Exodus 23:11 puts the leaving of ground in the imperative, which is the opposite of laziness.

And here is the practical test, which you can run yourself.

If a neighbor came and asked, you would have an answer. A good one, about rotation or recovery or whatever your actual reasons are, delivered without embarrassment, and he would say fair enough and go home.

So the account is entirely defensible to a real person. It is only indefensible to the thing in your chest, which does not ask and does not listen and cannot be satisfied by a reason.

You are able to answer any actual person who asks, and a defensible decision has never once been indefensible to anybody real. The Spirit of God is the one who tests a feeling against what is actually the case, and the written word makes the leaving a command that a man could cite.

And there is one more thing, which is that this will happen again.

A fallow year is not a one-off. If your practice includes it, there will be another, and the guilt will arrive at the next one too unless something is done now.

You are able to deal with a thing at the first instance rather than annually, and a feeling answered once has never once had to be answered from scratch every time. The Holy Spirit is the one who settles something for more than one season, and the word sets up the seventh year as a repeating thing rather than as a single exception.

Walk the edge and say it out loud

So here is the assignment.

Walk the edge of it once and say out loud that it is meant to be like that.

Along the boundary, at whatever pace. And say it, plainly, in your own voice, where nobody can hear you.

This is meant to be like this. This is the seventh year. Whatever words are true.

You are able to say the actual reason out loud in the actual place, and a plain statement of fact has never once been too small a thing to answer a feeling with. Exodus 23:11 says thou shalt let it rest, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a man walks a fence line saying something to nobody.

Here is why walking the edge rather than standing.

Because the guilt arrives while walking past. That is its moment. It is attached to the movement and to the glance, and answering it in a chair in the evening does not reach it, because it is not there in the evening.

You have to meet it where it lives, which is at the boundary, in motion.

You are able to answer something in the place it actually happens, and a thing addressed where it lives has never once been harder to reach than a thing addressed later. The Holy Spirit is the one present at the fence rather than only at the kitchen table, and the written word puts the instruction about the ground out where the ground is.

And walk the whole edge, not a corner. It takes as long as it takes.