I Check It Every Day

You put your finger in that soil three times today.

Once in the morning, on the way past. Once at about two, when you were in there for something else and it occurred to you. And once this evening, properly, going down to the second knuckle to see whether it was dry further in.

It was slightly damp all three times, which is what it was yesterday.

And you watered it anyway on Sunday, because the top looked lighter in color, and you have a feeling about that now.

I want to start where nobody starts with this, because the way this usually gets talked about is wrong and it makes people feel foolish.

You are not making a mistake.

Every article about this treats overwatering as an error of technique, a thing you do because you do not know the rule. And so it tells you the rule, and you already knew the rule, and you watered it anyway.

Because this is not about information. It is anxiety, and anxiety does not respond to a fact.

Here is what actually happens. Something in you is uneasy about that plant. The unease has no outlet, and there is one action available that resembles helping, and so your hand goes to the can. Watering is the only verb you have. It is the thing you can do when you cannot do nothing.

And afterward the unease drops for about an hour, which is why it keeps happening.

That is not a technique problem. Nobody has ever solved it by being told the rule again.

Be still, and know that I am God

There is a line in the forty sixth psalm that is quoted constantly and almost always as a comfort, and it is actually an instruction.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:10, King James Version)

Be still, and know that I am God.

We have made that verse into a warm sentence for a difficult afternoon. It is not warm. It is a command, given in a psalm about upheaval: the earth removed, the mountains carried into the sea, the nations raging.

And into that noise: be still.

The stillness being commanded is not a feeling. You cannot be ordered to feel calm and nobody has ever succeeded at it. It is a stopping. Cease. Let go. Take your hands off.

And then look at the reason attached: and know that I am God.

The stillness is not the point on its own. It is the condition in which something becomes knowable, and what becomes knowable is that He is God, which is to say: that the holding of things is not yours.

That is the exact belief underneath a finger in the soil three times a day.

Somewhere in you there is a conviction that if you are not attending to it, it is unattended. That your attention is the thing keeping it going. And that conviction is not really about a plant, which is why it does not respond to being told the watering rule.

Be still and know that I am God is the direct answer to it, and it is an instruction rather than a reassurance. Stop, and in the stopping you will find out that the sustaining was never yours.

The stillness commanded is a stopping and not a feeling, and your attention has never once been what was holding it up. Psalm 46:10 gives the order in the middle of the earth being moved, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody putting a finger in the soil for the third time in a day.

Hands off is not neglect

Here is the practical half, and it is a distinction your body does not currently believe.

Leaving a thing alone is not the same as neglecting it.

Those feel identical from the inside, which is why you cannot stop. Every time you walk past without touching it, something in you registers a small failure of care, and the discomfort builds until your hand does something to relieve it.

But look at what the two actually are.

Neglect is not knowing and not caring: a plant in a room somebody has forgotten, unnoticed, unwatered because nobody has thought about it in a month.

Leaving alone is a deliberate act by somebody fully present. You know exactly where it is, you know exactly what its soil is like, and you are choosing not to intervene. That is not the absence of care. It is care that has learned to include waiting.

And here is the part that matters most for a plant, and it is a genuine biological fact rather than a metaphor.

Roots need the soil to dry between waterings. That is not a tolerance for a bit of dryness, it is a requirement: roots take in air from the spaces between wet and dry, and soil that never dries out has no air in it, and roots in airless soil rot. Which looks exactly like a plant that needs water.

So the drying is not a gap between the times you are helping it. The drying is part of the help.

Doing nothing for four days is not four days of the plant surviving your absence. It is four days of you giving it something it cannot get any other way.

Leaving it alone is a deliberate act by somebody present, and it has never once been the same thing as neglect. The written word commands the stopping in the middle of upheaval, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody whose care has turned into a hand on a can.

Four days, and put the can away

So here is the assignment, and the second half is what makes the first half possible.

Do not water anything for four days and put the watering can out of sight.

Four days. Nothing gets watered. Not the one you are worried about and not the others, because the others will make an excuse for the can coming out.

And no finger in the soil. That is included. Checking is the beginning of watering and you already know that, because you have never once checked and then done nothing.

And then the second part: put the can out of sight.

Under the sink, in a cupboard, in another room. Not on the counter and not where your eye lands on it.

Here is why that is not a gimmick. An object in view is a prompt. A can standing beside a plant is a small continuous invitation, and you have been declining it forty times a day, and every decline costs a little. Out of sight, the invitation stops arriving, and four days becomes something you can actually do rather than a battle you have to keep winning.

And write down the day it ends. Four days from today, and on that day you look, and if it is dry two knuckles down you water it properly.

Now, what will actually be hard is not the plant.

It will be the feeling around day two, when you walk past and do not touch it and something in you says you are letting it down. That feeling is the whole reason for this assignment, and it will pass, and it is worth knowing that it will pass without you doing anything about it.

That is what be still means. Not feeling calm. Standing there with the discomfort and not putting your hand out.

You are able to stand there with the discomfort and not put your hand out, and the checking has never once been separate from the watering. Psalm 46:10 commands a stopping rather than a feeling, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody walking past a plant on day two.