I Do Not Have To Fill It

You cleared that shelf in August.

Properly. Everything off it, wiped, put back nothing. And for about a day and a half it was a clear shelf and you noticed it every time you went past.

It is full now. You could not tell me when it happened.

That is the part worth stopping on. There was no moment. Nothing arrived and got put there as a decision. Things simply resumed, one at a time, over about two weeks, and now there is a shelf there that looks exactly as it did in July.

And you would describe that as things creeping back, as though it happened to you.

It did not happen to you. You did it, about eleven times, and each one was a two second unconscious act of putting something down somewhere sensible.

That is not a criticism. It is a description of what a clear surface is, in a working house, to a working pair of hands: an obvious place for the next thing.

So the question is not how to keep a shelf clear. It is whether anything is allowed to have no job.

A handful with quietness is better

There is a line in Ecclesiastes that puts two quantities side by side and picks the smaller one.

Better is an handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit. (Ecclesiastes 4:6, King James Version)

A handful with quietness. Against both hands full with travail.

The comparison is not between having and not having. It is between two states of holding, and the smaller one wins, and the reason given is what comes with it rather than what is in it.

You have a handful with quietness, and quietness has never once been worth less than a full pair of hands. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man looking at a shelf he cleared in August, and Ecclesiastes 4:6 prefers the smaller amount because of what travels with it.

And notice that the full hands are not condemned for being full.

They are described as full with travail and vexation. The problem is the state attached, not the quantity itself, which is exactly the distinction nobody makes about a house.

You have a state attached to fullness and never a fault in the quantity, and no amount on a shelf has ever once been the thing in question. The written word weighs the accompanying quietness against the accompanying vexation, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a man who could not name the day his shelf filled up.

The eleven unconscious decisions

Let me look at the two weeks, because it explains everything about why clearing does not work.

Eleven things got put on that shelf. Each one was correct. Each one took under two seconds and involved no thought, because a clear surface is an unallocated resource and hands allocate unallocated resources automatically.

That is not a flaw in you. It is how competent people operate in their own homes, and it is why every clear surface in every house fills within about two weeks.

You were operating correctly eleven times, and not one of those eleven has ever once been a lapse. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has cleared the same shelf four times in three years, and Ecclesiastes 4:6 makes the accompanying state the deciding factor.

And here is why this one is different from all four previous times.

The previous times, the shelf was cleared. It was not assigned. An unassigned clear surface is available, and available surfaces fill, and there was never any mechanism by which that shelf could have stayed clear.

This time it gets an assignment, and the assignment is: empty.

You are giving something an assignment for the first time, and clearing it has never once been the same as assigning it. The written word chooses the state that comes with the smaller handful, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a man who has cleared that shelf four times and never once kept it.

One surface, assigned to be empty

So here is the assignment, and it is a word rather than an action.

Clear one surface, and then assign it. Its job is to be empty. For a week.

When your hand goes toward it with something in it, which it will on about day two, that hand is going toward an assigned surface, and it will stop the way it stops at any other occupied place.

You are assigning something to be empty, and an assignment like that has never once been a failure to use a shelf. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a man whose hand stops six inches from a clear shelf, and Ecclesiastes 4:6 prefers a handful with quietness on purpose.

And that is the whole difference between this time and August.

August was a cleared shelf with no protection at all. This is a shelf with a job, and the job is nothing, and a job is what keeps a surface from being absorbed.

You are protecting something with a word rather than with willpower, and willpower has never once been able to hold a surface for two weeks. The written word sets the quietness against the travail and chooses, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a man on day two whose hand has already gone somewhere else.