fallow

If we could not beat ourselves up for our unproductive seasons, for our barren expanses of time in which we lay gathering. The way we live now, what we live in, demands proof and output. There is, it seems, less and less reverence for slow, internal growth. We want output, throughput, turnover and profit.

The sometimes season left unseeded, is necessary and rhythmic. Yet, sadly, in a fast world we often push through it. It is too tedious. It is not profitable. And it seems wasted. Much like how we knock down old buildings because they are old and we can put a drive-thru there, we’ve developed a culture that demands immediate payoff and is less emphatic about the invested value of building something quietly enduring.

I’ve been fallow before, and resented some of it. But nestled in to it when less concerned with sustained, overblown levels of output. Growth is good, we all agree. And forward movement is quite necessary. Yet let us be gentle on ourselves for our fallow periods. So long as we don’t forget to reawaken in the spring.