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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Jesse French
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Jesse French and I'm joined again by my colleague and good friend Cody Berth. Hello to you, Cody.
Cody Buriff
Hey, Jesse, it's good to be here. Yeah, man. Well, guys, if you're listening to this podcast right now and you haven't listened to the previous two podcasts, you may want to go back and check those out because we're kind of on a little bit of a theme. You know, the last couple of podcasts, the first one we talked about harvest and kind of gathering the things and really meditating and reflecting on what has been over the last year or so. Last season of life.
Jesse French
Good to have you here, man.
Cody Buriff
And then we jumped into threshing, which basically means, you know, separating the things that have life from the things that don't have life and don't bring life. And so kind of worked through a bunch of those things. Now, this podcast specifically, we want to talk about this concept called fallow, which I'm going to be honest, I haven't heard that word very much. So Jesse, could you tell us all like what is fallow? What is it? What are we talking about?
Jesse French
Yeah.
So my little disclaimer here is I studied animal science in college. I didn't study crop science. So if people who are listening, like your wife, Allison would have been like the best person to talk about cropping. No, but this notion of fallow is a practice in the agricultural world where after a crop is harvested, instead of replanting that field to grow something else, the field lays dormant. Nothing else is replanted.
into that and it is given a period of rest. And yeah, for me, the first time I had heard about it, like I said, I was in college, I studied more of the cattle side of things and how you manage pastures is a huge piece of that world. And so I remember a professor coming in and talking about, look like when you are managing the grazing, the ground that you graze with cattle, she said, best practice is, I can't remember how many years that it is, I should know, but like every few years,
You should give your pastures like a complete rest through the whole growing season. And so the notion, right, is like, Hey, we could graze cattle on the set of ground, but in order to care for the plants and their long-term health, it is a wise practice to give that ground rest, to let it go fallow. Obviously in that, in that scenario, right. Grass is still growing. So it's not totally empty, like in a, in an annual crop production scenario. But yeah, but fallow is this an intentional decision.
not to plant something in a field and to instead let that ground rest.
Cody Buriff
Okay, so obviously like we're all into metaphors and I've been, you running through them the last couple of podcasts, but what the heck does that have to do with me?
Jesse French
Totally. Yeah. Like what? Yeah. I'm not planting anything. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the places that it intersects our own life is in that lesson and in that practice, it invites the steward of that land to say, look, maximum productivity where you are, you're getting every single bit of production out of the ground. have maximizing that and planting everything to the max is not the paradigm to live under.
It's saying for the long-term viability of your ground, rest and ground that is not producing something that is unproductive is actually beneficial. And so I think the invitation then for us is, could that be true in our own lives? I would venture to say as North Americans, our relationship with productivity is complicated to say the very least. so, so for us to consider, wow,
The goal is not maximizing our yield. The goal is actually to tend to our lives, to tend to the spaces that God has given us to steward. And that could require things laying foul, us not investing and trying to maximize the impact in all of those ways in our life. Does that make some sense?
Cody Buriff
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like basically if we disregard the idea of resting, of allowing for fallow ground, you know, it's short sighted. It's like, we're going to maximize short term gain and short term productivity and sacrifice long term health. Yeah. Yes. Now, I feel like you guys, if you go Google fallow, which I did, and you Google it in the context of scripture, most of what comes up is.
Jesse French
That's a great way to put it.
Cody Buriff
guys talking about how we need to break up fallow ground and like, you know, that kind of thing. But I'm aware like there is another spot where God actually like commands it.
Jesse French
Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating, right? In Leviticus 25, God instructs Moses to, to instruct the Israelites to say, look, you're going into the promised land and you can plant and work the ground for six years. And on the seventh year, you need to let that ground go fallow to not plant anything. And it goes on to say like, there will be enough, like you will not plant anything and there'll be enough for you.
people that work your land, even the livestock that you have. And so it's this, this really interesting instruction, right? That feels like, again, it mirrors or follows the rhythm of Sabbath on the seventh day, right? Of like, to work six days, rhythm of six plus one to work six and rest one. And so that notion of fallow, think absolutely.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, you see that pattern in creation, you know, in the command, the 10 commandments, the Sabbath day, all of it, right? Year of Jubilee even. Yeah.
Jesse French
Yeah. Cody, when you, when you hear some of that and even just kind of consider that potential implication of your own life, again, obviously you don't have hundreds of acres that you're farming. Yeah. But like maybe just gut reaction. When you think about, letting something rest, not ringing the productivity out of something in your life, like what comes to mind or what feelings surface.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, I have a hard time with that, frankly. You know, so I don't do well with like, quote unquote, keeping this app. It's like I have this unending pile of projects and sometimes it's, you know, career work related, you know, restoration projects. Sometimes it's just like house stuff or whatever. But I have a hard time like sitting still. I have a hard time resting in that sense. And, know, even if we go on vacation, right, like my tendency.
Is to go suck the life out of everything. Yes. Let's go see the things. Let's go do the things. It's like this is our opportunity. We're here. Let's not miss anything. And it took I mean, it was probably just a few years ago where I actually learned how to sit still for a couple of days. Yeah, it was a game changer. Now it's kind of actually all I want to do, but I just feel compelled to just go, go, go, go, go, you know, right. Right.
Jesse French
Yeah.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, we're not good at that.
Jesse French
No, no, not on a, I'm with you. Like not on a weekly basis, even in a, in more of a forced rest scenario vacation. But I mean, and it feels like it's even amplified or the stakes are even grown a little bit when we think about, Hey, could there be an endeavor, a relationship, a project, you know, something within our life that has the potential to produce something productive and to say, no, we're.
Cody Buriff
Yeah
Jesse French
to let that rest. Like, yeah, yeah, my mind feels like the error messages are full alert.
Cody Buriff
Oh yeah.
I hear that. hear that. What do you think happens for a man if he actually sits down and rests, lets some ground go fallow in his life for a little while on purpose.
Jesse French
I think he's invited or forced to reckon with the source of stability in his own life. I mean, because right, it is so easy for us to operate under the mode of stability and safety is born out of our productivity, our work, our ingenuity, all of those things. And so to remove that from the equation and to sit with
the question of will there be enough? I think it forces us to reckon with like, ultimately, who is the provider, right? And what is my role in that equation? Which sounds good on a podcast, like in my head, I'm like, yeah, the guy, and when the rubber beats the road, I mean, goodness, feels that feels foolish, right?
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Totally. Yeah, when I when I hear all that, it's like I'm aware like fallow is not inactivity, right?
Jesse French
Say that again. That is gold. Say that again.
Cody Buriff
When we let something rest, it doesn't mean that there is not activity going on. It doesn't mean that something isn't actually happening under the surface. It's trusting that God is going underground in our lives and our stories and whatever it is that's simmering. And he's doing work that we cannot orchestrate. We can't make it happen. It's this kind of restorative, developmental...
simmering that has to happen. Yeah, you know, like when when I know when farm ground is like, let go fallow for a little while like that allows like some of the natural like microbes and some of those processes.
Jesse French
Exactly.
Cody Buriff
So that's needed.
Jesse French
Absolutely, right because you said some great things there. I think you said like it's needed right because what the practice of fallow In furs or just assumes is like there will be depletion right in the soil metaphor like there will be the depletion of nutrients and so in order to Become more healthy there has to be this period of rest. So in our own lives right to acknowledge like Depletion is a fact and so how would we like to handle that?
Cody Buriff
And we often don't. I mean, Jesse, I used to work for another organization in ministry and it was wild. There was like a badge of honor in saying that you had never taken a sabbatical. And so there were staff on that in that organization who had gone 30 years and never taken a sabbatical, even though they were allowed to take a sabbatical.
Jesse French
Ugh.
That was a normal thing organizationally.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, yeah. And like, frankly, at that time, it was a short sabbatical. It wasn't very much of a, it like a month that was allowed, but guys wouldn't take it. And they would boast about having never taken a sabbatical, which is like so unhealthy. And I remember having a conversation with this, you know, leader of this organization saying like, Hey, like, we are really good at trusting in ourselves. And this like,
Jesse French
It is. It is.
Cody Buriff
boasting that happens in our productivity and lack of rest is actually like us trusting not in the Lord But in ourselves only and therefore not trusting him. Yeah
Jesse French
Yeah. man. It can be easy for me to hear that. And it like breaks my heart. And part of me wants to get so boxy and be like, that's the worst. And like that, that same temptation faces you and me, right? Like I'm aware of it. It's like, yes, it is right in front of us, ⁓ even in this week for us. so Cody, I, I love the connection that we're talking about, like choosing to let things rest and the connection to the
Cody Buriff
Every week. Every week.
It's
Jesse French
You know, to the practice of Sabbath, the practice and rhythm of sabbatical, such fitting expressions of that. I'd love to pick your brain on maybe like, let's tilt the idea, you know, rest totally needed, you know, in, that space. But when we think about spaces in our life around that we could lay fallow, that we could choose to not plant again, less from a time of rest perspective and more from a, this is a space I'm willing to forgo planting.
Where does your mind go in some of that discernment in your own life for people listening of like, yeah, what does that practically look like as we think about the ways that we will continue to invest our resources in the upcoming months?
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Well, in the spirit of like harvest and the whole series that we're kind of doing here, you know, with the harvest and the threshing and everything, you know, all three of these, there's a bit of an evaluation that needs to take place. and so when we are gathering the things that are good and separating them out and pulling out the things that are life-giving and letting the things that are not life-giving drop, there's also just like an evaluation. I think that has to happen for fallow to be possible.
And so to some degree in one way or another, it's kind of a listing out of like, okay, here are all the things I'm going after. Yeah. And like, you know, if this was a business podcast, I think it'd be easy to say like, okay, you you start your day or your month or your year and you kind of go through and list out all the things you're trying to do and you, and then you got to prioritize and you got to, you're saying yes to some things and saying yes to those things means no to other things. That's right. And it's kind of similar.
in that way in our lives of like, for us to intentionally allow for fallow, we have to say yes to it. Yep. But that also means saying no to other things that actually might feel good or, you know, they're not bad things. You know, and so for me, like I am a habitual serial collector of projects. I have so many unfinished projects. It's stupid. It's like my hobby.
is like finding things to fix. And so my yard is turning into like redneck Ville or something. So one practical thing for me could be choosing, okay, I need to like offload some of these things. So they're not building pressure, you know, and other things I need to offload in the sense, some of them might be like, just sell or get rid of or throw away or whatever other things that might be like, I just need to set that aside, put it in like a space of storage somewhere where it's not gonna
hound me, you know, looking for me to come after it and like five years from now, three years from now, year from now, whatever, maybe it'll be the right time to pick it up. But right now I don't need that pressure in my life.
Jesse French
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that because I think some of what you're getting at, right, is to actually go through the work of making the hard decision of saying like, I'm either going to lean in or I'm going to set this aside and it doesn't get to occupy the mental space or the physical space maybe, but it's an intentional choice to like to choose one or the other. Right. And that for me, at least it can be so easy to just perpetuate this sort of indecision, right.
projects grow, these things happen, but it never really forces me down like the fork in the road to choose, am I doing this? Am I committing? Or can I make the commitment to say, no, like, some of that decision I think that you're talking about, yeah, it feels really important.
Cody Buriff
right now. Yeah, yeah.
I wonder too, Jesse, like as we talk about this and obviously like we're kind of in the world, the circle of kind of story work and self, you know, awareness and digging into our stories and our lives. And we're like, you can do that a ton and it can get overwhelming and exhausting and that's not bad, but I think there's actually a line where you can go too far with it.
Jesse French
Yeah, that's interesting. Why do you think that, Cody?
Cody Buriff
Well, it's not that like I, I want to hesitate and be like, well, there's goodness in it. If for sure. Yeah. And like, if all we do is excavate and grieve and mourn, and we never like take a break, come up for air, play a little, have some, you know, whatever, right? Like it actually, I think can be somewhat destructive in our lives. There's a lot to get across.
But depleting is the word. Yep. And so sometimes I wonder, Jesse, if we actually need to take a break from some of the like really deep work, quote unquote, as people like to refer to it as and do a different kind of work that is restorative in nature and restful.
Jesse French
Yeah, and it's what you said earlier is it is too late to let something lay fallow is not inactivity. Right. It is the conscious and very intentional decision of this is important so much so that I'm willing to pause and let it simmer and let it breathe and let it wait and trust the work of God to unfold in ways that I might not have a sense of, but I am believing will happen.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, and it's not forever. It's like you're coming back to it. Sure. You know.
Jesse French
Yep. Yeah. think that's a good example too, because it may be a starting place in some of that reflection is like, give the example of leaning heavily into story work. Like it even just could be like, Hey, where have I pushed in my life really hard? Where have I expended a significant amount of energy in pursuit of something? And maybe that's a starting place, right? To say, like, I'm not saying that guarantees, Hey, stop all of that. Right.
But just to be curious around, wow, I have, I have expended a lot in pursuit of this. have asked a lot of this relationship or this space in my life. Hmm. Interesting. Right. And just, just even wonder and start there.
Cody Buriff
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good. That's good. I love this topic. I feel like it's easy to talk about, but hard to do. Like in real life, it's so challenging.
Jesse French
Yeah, yeah, because I think it forces us into the uncomfortable space again, right, of into trust of into the place of the things that are orienting for me. Maybe are not there. And so who am I and how am I walking through the world like that is? Yeah, that rubber meets the road piece. It's unnecessary and so challenging.
Cody Buriff
Yeah. Well, I want to offer the listeners this kind of this thought. Ecclesiastes three verse two says there is a time to plant in a time to uproot what is planted. And so basically like the wisdom is not in like fighting the seasons, but it's like walking in them. And so, yeah, I just want to give you guys some questions, something to think about and consider. So here's a few questions, right? What season are you in right now?
Right? We're talking about fall. Uh, we're talking about harvest season because it is harvest season, right? It's October, November ish as these are, this is coming out as we're recording this even what season are you actually in right now? You know, we're inviting you into some of the things we've talked about. It's possible that you're in a different season and that's totally okay. Go after it, but consider this one, right? What season are you in right now? What is being revealed, right? What is there to gather and glean and what is being stripped away? What needs to be like,
separated and split out and kind of dropped and let go of and what needs to be held on to. What are the life giving pieces that you need to just hold on to? And then, and then frankly, like what is being restored under the surface? Like what needs to rest? What needs to simmer? And what do you need to come back to later and just give it a little time, you know, so that some things can happen under the surface. God can do what he needs to do in your life so that you're ready.
for the next time to actually plant in that space.
Jesse French
Yeah, those are such great questions. I think the other thing I might add to that, that really good list, Cody, is something that we talked about, I think on the last one, and that is, and who would you like to invite into this process, right? Of believing that this process, it has to be twofold in the sense of, it has to be on some level, some individual work that we're doing alongside the spirit of God. And we would believe that it also needs to include some other people.
And so who might you invite into some of this process as you're discerning, as you're harvesting, as you're, waiting through some of that, because I think there's so much to be gained. The perspective of others, the witness of others, right. In this process.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you guys, if you sit down with your wife or some friends or something and and kind of just say, hey, as you know, these are some of the pieces, these are some of the things that I'm recognizing that I'm wanting to together glean or separate out and toss and or let rest for a little while. Like just saying those things out loud with another person. Or frankly, like having other people help you discover those things like a game changer, right?
Jesse French
For sure. For sure
Cody Buriff
Yeah, don't have to do it alone.
Jesse French
No. No, in fact, please don't like Cody. Thanks for. Thanks for, yeah. These three, these three conversations I've, I've enjoyed the rumination on them, the band of Mack and four. Thanks for your invitation and your insight.
Cody Buriff
Yeah, seriously.
Yeah, thank you, Jesse. And your farming expertise and good lucks that nobody can see because they're listening to this.
Jesse French
They are significant.
Cody Buriff
Uh huh. huh. Well, thanks guys. Yup. Thanks for listening. Talk to you later.