I Grew Up With Fields And Now There Is A Wall

You grew up looking at distance.

Whatever it was, there was ground and then more ground, and a line at the end of it, and weather you could see coming for half an hour before it arrived.

And now there is a wall. Eight feet away. You can read the mortar.

And it is not that you are complaining about the wall. You made a decision, or a decision was made for you, and here you are, and there are good reasons you are in this city.

But something happens at that window that is not about light at all, and I think it is why nothing has ever been put on that sill.

Putting something living in this window would mean you live here.

How shall we sing in a strange land

There is a psalm written by people who had been carried a long way from where they were from, and it is not a comfortable psalm.

How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:4, King James Version)

How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land.

You are asking a question that is in the book of Psalms, and no ache about a place you came from has ever once been a weakness in you. Psalm 137:4 asks how shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets that question stand over a man looking at a brick wall.

Notice what scripture does with that question. It keeps it. It does not answer it in the psalm, and it does not tidy it away.

The psalm before it and the psalm after it are full of praise. This one is not. And it was kept, and sung, and put in the book.

Which tells you that there is room in worship for a man who is not able to sing about the place he lives.

You were never required to feel at home in order to be honest with God, and the missing of an open horizon has never once been something to get past first. The Spirit of God is what holds that without hurrying anybody, and Psalm 137 is where the question stands unanswered.

What the wall actually gives

Now the practical half, and it is a genuine feature rather than consolation.

A wall eight feet away reflects.

Brick throws back a diffuse, even light for most of the day, and because it does not depend on the sun being at any particular angle, it does not arrive in a burst and then vanish. It comes in flat and steady, for hours.

A window facing open country gets a wider range and a harsher one. Strong direct light in a band, and then nothing.

For something on a windowsill, steady and diffuse is easier to live with than bright and brief. Your wall is doing something for that window that a field would not do.

You have a window that gives an even light all day, and a wall at eight feet has never once been the same as no view at all. What is written in Psalm 137:4 does not pretend the strange land is home, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can tell a true good thing without making it a compensation.

And I want to be careful, because this is the point where an article about a plant can become dishonest.

I am not saying the wall is as good as the fields. It is not. You lost something real when you moved, and nothing on a windowsill replaces a horizon.

What I am saying is smaller and true. The window works. The light is usable. And the reason the sill is empty has never been the wall.

You are not being asked to be grateful for a wall, and a thing that works has never once had to be a thing you prefer. The Spirit of God is the one who lets both of those be true at once, and Psalm 137 is the ground under it.

The hour you used to be outside

So here is the instruction, and there is one detail in it that is the whole reason to do it this way.

Put one plant on the sill facing the wall.

And water it in the morning, in the hour you used to be outside. You know the hour. Early, before the day started properly, the hour you used to be out for whatever reason. Your body still knows it, and something in a man goes looking for that hour and does not find it in a flat like this.

Give it something to do. Two minutes at a window with a living thing in it, in that hour, is not the same as a field, and it is not nothing, and it puts the missing somewhere rather than leaving it loose in the day.

You have an hour in you that still knows what it was for, and giving it something small to hold has never once been a way of pretending it was replaced. Psalm 137:4 keeps the question open, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a man honor a loss without arguing with it.

You are able to give an old hour something to hold, and two minutes at a window has never once had to compete with what you came from. Psalm 137:4 asks its question and keeps it, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing with a man at a sill early in the morning.