The Neighbors Can See It

Two kitchen windows look onto your yard.

You know which two. You could tell me which one has the blind that is always half down and which one belongs to the family who are out a lot.

And ever since the ground got away from you, those windows have been part of the problem in a way that the weeds themselves are not.

Because there is an audience now. Not a hostile one. Probably not an interested one either, if you are honest, and that is a thing we will come back to. But there is a possibility of being seen, and that possibility has changed what going outside means.

You are not required to begin at a size that satisfies anybody watching, and a neighbor's window has never once had a vote in what you do out there.

Here is the specific trap you are in, and it is worth setting out plainly because it is quite ingenious.

If you go out and do a small amount, you will have been seen doing a small amount, and a small amount looks like a person who has noticed the problem and is not equal to it. That reads worse than not going out at all.

So the only outing that would be safe is a large one. A proper day of it, visible progress, the kind of session where somebody looking out at four in the afternoon would see a changed yard.

And a proper day is exactly the thing you do not have and have not had since spring.

So you do nothing, and the ground goes on, and the windows go on being there.

Do I seek to please men

There is a question Paul asks in Galatians that is unusually blunt, and he asks it about himself.

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10, King James Version)

Do I seek to please men.

Now, the first thing to notice is that he asks it as a question rather than announcing that he does not. He is checking. It is a man auditing his own motive out loud in a letter.

You are permitted to ask that question of yourself without the asking being an accusation, and a person checking their own motive has never once been a person already convicted. Galatians 1:10 is a man putting a question to himself in the open, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that be an examination rather than a verdict.

And the second thing is the shape of what he is describing. Pleasing men is not about being kind to people. It is about who the work is aimed at.

That is the distinction I want out in the yard with you. Nobody is saying do not care about your neighbors. The question is whether the gardening is being done for them.

You are able to care about people without doing your work in front of them, and consideration for a neighbor has never once required a person to be performing for one. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates kindness from audience, and the written word puts the question on who the work is aimed at rather than on how a person feels about anybody.

And here is what pleasing men actually costs, in your case, and it is very concrete.

It has set a minimum. You cannot go out for ten minutes because ten minutes would not read well from a window, and so an audience that has said nothing and probably noticed nothing has quietly set the smallest unit of work you are allowed to do.

You are working to a minimum that nobody ever set out loud, and an audience has never once had to say anything to start deciding what a person may do. The Spirit of God is the one who lifts a standard off a person that nobody actually imposed, and the word asks whose approval the work is being done under.

They are not watching

Let me say something plainly, and it is not flattery, it is arithmetic.

They are not looking.

I do not mean that unkindly and I do not mean they are indifferent people. I mean that the human capacity for attention to somebody else's yard is very small, and it is used up almost immediately.

If your ground got away in spring, they noticed it in about April, thought something for perhaps four seconds, and have not thought about it since. It is now simply the way your yard looks, in the way that the color of your door is simply the color of your door.

You are being watched a great deal less than the arrangement in your head requires, and a neighbor has never once had the attention span the imagination assigns them. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings an estimate back to a realistic size, and Galatians 1:10 asks about seeking to please men in a world where the men are mostly thinking about something else.

And there is a second thing, which is more useful than the first.

Even if one of them does look out at four in the afternoon, what they will see is a woman working in her garden. That is the whole of the observation. They will not run the analysis that has been running in here, because that analysis requires knowing everything you know, and they know none of it.

The verdict you are frightened of is one that only you have the material to reach.

You are the only person in this street holding the evidence for that verdict, and a judgment nobody else can assemble has never once been one you were obliged to pass. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a case out of the hands of the only person prosecuting it, and the written word turns the question toward who a person is actually serving.

Ten minutes, in full view

So here is the assignment, and every part of it is chosen against the trap.

Go out and do ten minutes in full view, and stop after ten minutes.

Not at dusk. Not on a day when they are away, which I know you have considered. In the middle of the afternoon, when both those kitchens are occupied if they are going to be.

You are able to work in the open at a size somebody might see, and ten minutes in daylight has never once needed to be hidden from anybody. Galatians 1:10 asks whose approval a person is working under, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there with a woman kneeling in view of two windows.

And stop at ten. That is not a limit, it is the exercise.

Because the whole point is to break the minimum. Two hours out there would satisfy the audience and the arrangement would stand, and next week would find you still waiting for a free day.

Ten minutes, seen, and then standing up and going inside while the yard still plainly needs work. That is the thing that has not happened, and it is the only thing that changes anything.

You are able to walk away from unfinished ground in front of people, and stopping in plain sight has never once been a thing a person owed anybody an account of. The Holy Spirit is the one present when a woman stands up early on purpose, and the word puts the pleasing of men and the serving of God as two different directions rather than two degrees of the same one.