The Only Sill Is Over The Sink

There is one sill in the house and it is over the sink.

Which means it is wet. There is a cloth on it, and a bottle of something, and a mug that has been there since Tuesday, and half the time your forearm is across the whole thing while you are dealing with a pan.

So a plant would be in the way. That has been the conclusion for a while, and it is not an unreasonable conclusion.

But I want to turn that over, because I think you have been counting the wrong things as problems.

Everything you just listed is a reason that sill is the best place in your house for a plant, not the worst.

You are at it every single day, with water in your hand.

Faithful in that which is least

Jesus says something about small things in Luke that is usually preached about money and applies much more widely.

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. (Luke 16:10, King James Version)

He that is faithful in that which is least.

You are being told that the small thing and the large thing are the same thing, and no place has ever once been too ordinary to be where faithfulness actually happens. Luke 16:10 says he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a man standing at his own sink.

Notice the claim being made. Not: do the small things so that you can be trusted with the big ones. That is the version people usually hear, and it turns the small thing into a qualifying round.

What it says is that the two are the same. The faithfulness in the least is not preparation for faithfulness in much. It is the same faithfulness, appearing at a smaller size.

Which means what happens at a kitchen sink is not a rehearsal for something. It is the thing itself.

You were never in a waiting room, and nothing done at a sink has ever once been a smaller grade of the same act. The Spirit of God is what makes that reach a man doing the dishes, and Luke 16 is where the least and the much are written down.

Why a wet crowded sill is the good one

Now the practical half, and it is the whole reason I wanted to write this one. Almost every plant that dies in a house dies of being forgotten. Not of being in the wrong light, not of the wrong amount of water on any given day. Forgotten.

So the single most valuable property a spot can have is constant presence, with water already in hand.

That sink sill has that property more than any other surface in any house. A person is there several times a day. Their hands are already wet. There is a tap eighteen inches away.

Everything that makes it a bad place for ornaments makes it an excellent place for something alive.

You are standing at the one surface in the house that never needs to be remembered, and a sill in the traffic has never once been the wrong sill. Luke 16:10 puts the weight on the least, and the Holy Spirit is the one who reads a crowded corner rightly.

You have the one location in your home where a plant cannot be forgotten, and the crowding of that sill has never once been the thing that would kill it. What is written in Luke 16:10 puts the weight on the least rather than on the impressive, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man what he has been standing at.

And the wet is not a problem either, within reason. Kitchen air is damper than the rest of the house, and damper air is easier on a plant than the dry air of a heated room. Splashes are fine.

You have a room whose air is kinder than any other room in the house, and the dampness of a kitchen has never once been the thing working against you. Luke 16:10 makes the least and the much the same faithfulness, and the Spirit of God is the one who counts an advantage a man has been calling a fault.

The only real constraint is space, and that is solved by putting it at the end.

You are able to work with that sill exactly as it is, and a few inches at the end has never once been too little room to begin with. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a cramped place workable, and Luke 16 is the ground under the least.

The end where the dishes do not go

So here is the instruction, and the placement detail is the whole of it.

Put it at the end of the sill. The end furthest from where the draining happens, and on the side where your arm does not swing.

Every sink has one. It is usually the corner nearest the wall, and it usually has the cloth or the bottle on it, and it is usually about six inches wide, and six inches is plenty.

Move the cloth. Put the pot there.

And then the rule that makes this work, which costs nothing: when you are at the sink and the soil looks dry, run a little water into it. Not on a schedule. While you are already standing there.

You are able to make the watering happen inside something you already do, and a thing that never needs remembering has never once depended on your memory. Luke 16:10 makes the least and the much one act, and the Holy Spirit is the one who joins a small faithfulness to an ordinary evening.