I don't know about you but I always feel the space between Christmas and New Year's is kind of dead. The build up to Christmas is always intense and the pace of life often not conducive to reflection or solitude. Then comes the let down after the celebrations and gifts. With New Year's comes resolutions, a new set of goals and thinking afresh about where one is headed. But the mind and body are not yet ready for all that immediately after Christmas, so the space in between is just kind of dead. Unfortunately, my wife's birthday hits on December 30th. I learned early in our marriage not to forget the day and to make sure I had a little reserve before New Year's.
The analogy to our spiritual lives can easily be drawn. I'm thinking of two things that come to mind. First, it is important sometimes to let the ground lie fallow. This is a practice in farming that observes the soil's need to stop producing for a season so that nutrients, such as nitrogen, which is essential for crop growth, can be replenished. Fallowing also gives the soil an opportunity to reduce levels of weeds by cultivation techniques, and levels of pests and disease. Today, some of the same issues are resolved with crop rotation and pesticides to curb infestations and disease. But these solutions come with drawbacks as well. The runoff into rivers and bodies of water around the world from the use of pesticides kills life, principally by depleting oxygen from the water.
Currently the most notorious dead zone is a 22,126 square kilometer region in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi River dumps high-nutrient runoff from its vast drainage basin, which includes the heart of U.S. agribusiness, the Midwest, affecting important shrimp fishing grounds among other things.
So, the first observation to me is this–we should allow the ground to lie fallow sometimes. Rest is important, both physically and spiritually.
The second observation starts with a question. Is spiritual "fallowing" just about being passive? I think there is a real danger, at least as I observe the tendencies in my own life, to equate resting and being still with passivity. This is really doing the couch potato thing in my spiritual life. Pressure is off. I do not have to be up for a public performance. My prayer life gets weak. You could also say my eating habits during this in-between time almost become like the modern day farming effort of throwing pesticides on the soil to diminish the negative effects of over production. This amounts to a short cut in my view and down the road, or river bed, creates dead zones.
Rest is good. It is mandated by God even in the practice of hallowing the Sabbath. Kind of like fallowing soil. But rest is not passive. Nor does it require giving in to an easy path. I'm trying to train myself to use this "dead time" in a way that prepares me for what is ahead. Pray with me in this fashion, that God would teach us how to walk during the in-between times.
By the way, preparations are being made for the great fireworks display from the Space Needle on New Year's Eve in Seattle. This is always a big show. I had fun taking pictures in the city last night with Kjel. Another by the way–his photos are really amazing. Check them out. Notice his HRD version of the Seattle Center here. WARNING–it really sparkles: Kjel's Space Needle shot.
