When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the LORD your God.
I know this helped provide for the poor, and gave them the dignity of at least partly providing for themselves.
It also is a reminder that in the final analysis we don't own the fields or their produce, God does--and not claiming it all for ourselves drives that home.
I think some of us might find it usefully applied to their time as well. Kipling wrote "If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds full of distance run..." That phrasing has always had an unpleasant kick to me, and properly so, but some of us plan out our days without margin, and where then is the room for someone who needs some of their time?
I'm afraid I have more waste in my time than I should, and don't need to put in more--though maybe I should resist the tight timing of buses and not hurry so much. It is often "hurry up and wait" anyway, and there are generally plenty of people on the street.
1 comment:
I might say "mine" about time more than anything else I have.
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