Laid Low Like a Fallow Field

A friend of mine taught me there are three kinds of people in the world: Some who are currently going through a crisis, Some who have just finished going through a crisis and Some for whom a crisis is waiting just around a corner. This rings true for me these days. 

The surgeon tells me a bowel obstruction the size of a hard ball takes years to form. So how long has this crisis been growing in my life and I never had a clue?

It’s probably a good thing none of us knows what’s next, else we would fret and worry and waste the days that are given to us one by one. As I recall, many years ago someone very wise said something about that very temptation:

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today
(Matthew 6).

Someone else's bumper sticker wisdom reminds me: “Every day is a gift. That’s why we call it the Present.”

During this time of recovery, I find myself welcoming each day as an unopened present, wondering what will come to me as I move through each hour. This is quite different for me. 

I used to think I knew exactly what each day would bring; that’s why I had a calendar—to reassure me I knew exactly what would be happening in my future. Now I’m dis-illusioned from the illusion of knowing what the future holds.

I usually have a plan, a list of things to accomplish throughout the day so I can feel useful, so my life will have meaning. Now I’m challenged to remember that my life is meaningful completely apart from what I may (or may not) accomplish.

These are good things, I figure. There are certain lessons we only can learn when the props are removed, when the fullness is emptied, when the curtain is pulled back, when we are laid low.

Years ago—when I was lingering in another liminal space—I read a book by Sue Monk Kidd: When the Heart Waits. Her images of apple seeds and cocoons and fields lying fallow pierced me and have stayed with me through all my various experiences of (what I lovingly call) “forced Sabbaths.” I have done this before. Not quite like this but plenty of crises have laid me low plenty of times so that you would think I would be pretty good at this by now. And I guess I am better at it than I have been in the past. I am especially aware of the grace that I truly do not have anything better to do with my life right now than to rest and to heal.

I am a fallow field.

What will come from this? What will grow in me? What will the future bring?

I haven’t a clue. I’m not supposed to - although my control issues still tempt me to imagine that I should know, that I should be using this time to be “productive.”

But then the other angel on my shoulder reminds me that being productive must include the waiting and the resting and the getting ready to produce. Otherwise the harvest may be shallow and slight. The same wise teacher who tells us not to worry teaches about this temptation as well:

Hear then the parable of the sower... As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for awhile, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit… (Matthew 13).

I suppose like any field, I don’t have it in me to conjure up goodness. Seems to me that’s the work of the cosmos; maybe I am here to wait and to yield and to allow Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer to compost the muck and manure of my life into the goodness and richness I yearn for.

Will I ever serve another local congregation? Will I finish my degree? Will I keep musing about the scriptures of The Story? Will I keep pondering the intersections of faith and culture?

I don’t know. And that’s okay because I know I will know when it’s time to know.

In the meantime, my heart waits. And this resting spirit of mine is what allows my body to wait and rest as well. Every day is better. Every morning I wake up stronger. Every night I go to bed content. Every baby step is a milestone. Every challenge is an opportunity.

Every moment that the field of my life lies fallow for now is a day or a year of richness and goodness coming in my future.

I believe this. I trust this. I will rest in this.