Hibernation

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven....a time to be quiet and a time to speak.... (Ecclesiastes 3: 1 and7b NLT).

My blogging mood has been in hibernation, now for seven weeks. There is a time and season for everything. But in the frozen world of winter the barren trees wait. The seeds of ideas that would ordinarily germinate and surface during my walks in the woods, they all have been waiting, too.

It reminds me of the centuries-old practice of letting farmland lie fallow from time to time. It helps to restore nurtients to the soil and reduces the buildup of pathogens and pests that occur when the land is continually planted with the same crop. Scriptural references to this practice call it a sabbath rest: "For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath...." (Leviticus 25: 3-4 NLT). A good idea since the Israelite farmers could not run to the store for pesticides to ward off pathogens and pests. Today the practice of crop rotation is implemented for the same reasons.

And the first day of spring is exactly one month from today.

"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end."

Ecclesiastes 3: 11 NLT