This Is The One Thing I Keep Up

The rest of it is behind.

You know the list. The thing that should have been dealt with in the spring. The room that has been a room you close the door on. The call.

And there is a pot on the sill that has been watered, without fail, every week, through all of it.

And you have started to look at that sideways.

Because it is either the one thing you have kept, which is worth something, or it is a very small task you have been performing in order to feel like somebody who does things, which is worth considerably less.

And you cannot tell which, and you have been unable to tell for a while.

And the not being able to tell has quietly become its own weight, sitting on top of the list, which was heavy enough already. That is the thing this article is actually for. Not the list, which will still be there afterward. The second load that got stacked on top of it by an unanswerable question.

Mine own vineyard have I not kept

There is a line in the Song of Solomon that a woman says about herself, and it is startlingly direct.

They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. (Song of Solomon 1:6, King James Version)

Mine own vineyard have I not kept.

You are saying something scripture already puts in a woman's mouth, and an honest sentence about what has slipped has never once been the same as a confession of failure. Song of Solomon 1:6 says mine own vineyard have I not kept, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a woman looking at her own list.

Notice the shape of it. She is not lazy. She has been keeping vineyards, plural, and they were given to her by other people.

The thing that went unkept is her own, and it went unkept because everything else was being kept, and she says so plainly and without dressing it up.

And nobody in the text corrects her, argues with her, or tells her she is being hard on herself. The line stands.

You were never going to be the first woman to say that sentence, and a thing said plainly about your own house has never once needed softening. The Spirit of God is what lets that be said without it becoming an accusation, and Song of Solomon 1 is where it stands written.

Both, and it does not matter

Now the practical half, and it is the answer to the question at the top.

It is both. The pot is a real thing kept and it is also a small task you can complete in a week where you cannot complete anything else.

Those are not in competition. They are the same fact described from two angles, and the question of which one it really is has no answer because the question is malformed.

And here is why it has felt urgent to settle it. Because if it is faithfulness, you are allowed to feel something good about it, and if it is avoidance, you are not, and the whole of the last few weeks has been about whether you are permitted to feel all right about one small thing.

You have been holding a permission hostage to a question that cannot be decided, and no answer to it has ever once been available to anybody. What is written in Song of Solomon 1:6 states the unkept vineyard without ruling on the woman, and the Holy Spirit is the one who dissolves a question rather than answering it.

And there is something worth saying about what a watered pot in a hard month actually is.

It is not a cover story. Nobody is fooled. That house is not fooled and neither is the woman in it, and the plant has never once been presented to anybody as evidence of anything.

It is simply one thing that got done in a week where a great deal did not, and a week with one thing done in it is a different week from one with nothing.

You are living in a week with something in it, and one completed small thing has never once been the same as a week that went entirely unheld. The Spirit of God is the one who counts a week honestly, and Song of Solomon 1 is the ground under it.

Water it, then do one more

So here is the instruction and the second half is where the whole thing turns.

Water it today. And then do one other thing on the list. Any one. However small.

Not the big one. Not the one that has been there longest, and not the one that would most impress somebody. The smallest one available, the one that takes four minutes.

You are allowed to pick the easy one on purpose, and choosing the smallest item on a long list has never once been avoidance. Song of Solomon 1:6 admits the unkept vineyard without abandoning the woman, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes the easy choice the right one today.

And here is the reason that works. The plant is not the alibi it has been suspected of being, but it is a doorway, and doorways are only useful if something goes through them.

One completed small thing makes the next completed small thing easier, and that is not motivational language, it is just how a stalled week starts moving.

You have one thing already finished and sitting there, and a completed act has never once been a worse place to start from than an empty one. Song of Solomon 1:6 speaks honestly about what went unkept, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a finished thing into a doorway.

The plant is already done. Use it.

You are able to follow one finished thing with one more, and four minutes on the smallest item has never once been too little to move a week. Song of Solomon 1:6 admits the unkept vineyard without abandoning the woman, and the Holy Spirit is the one with somebody picking the smallest thing on a long list.