I Never Tried With Her Again

It happened once, two years ago, and you have spoken English to her ever since.

One time. That is the whole of the evidence. You said something in her language at a doorway on a Tuesday and she answered you in English, pleasantly, and you smiled and carried on in English, and something quietly closed.

And you have seen her most weeks since then. Well over a hundred conversations, all of them in English, none of them difficult, and not one of them in her language.

Here is what interests me about that, and I mean it without any judgment in it.

You never decided. There was no moment where you thought that door is shut and I will not try again. It simply became the arrangement, the way a path forms across a lawn because everybody walks the same way without agreeing to.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

Two years is a long time to live inside a conclusion you never actually reached, and nobody has ever pointed that out to you.

So I am not going to tell you that you overreacted. You did not react at all, which is different and more interesting. And I am not going to tell you to put it behind you, because it is not behind you, it is the current arrangement and it is running every week.

Remember ye not the former things

There is an instruction in Isaiah that sounds impossible until you look at what it is actually asking for.

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. (Isaiah 43:18, King James Version)

Neither consider.

Now the second half is the one that can actually be obeyed, because the first half on its own sounds like a command to forget, and nobody can forget on instruction.

Consider is different. To consider something is to take it into account when deciding what to do next. It is not about memory at all. It is about which things get a vote in the present.

You have been letting one Tuesday vote in every conversation since, and remembering a thing has never once been the same as consulting it. Isaiah 43:18 asks for the not considering rather than the not remembering, and the Holy Spirit is the one standing with a woman at a doorway two years later.

Now look at what the verse sits next to, because the very next line changes what it is asking.

Behold, I will do a new thing. The instruction to stop considering is not an instruction to be free of the past for its own sake. It is there because something is arriving, and the old accounting is in the way of noticing it.

You have been keeping a ledger that is standing in front of something, and an old entry has never once had the right to decide a Thursday. The Holy Spirit is the one who moves a woman past an arrangement she never agreed to, and Isaiah 43:18 clears the considering to make room for what comes next.

And here is the third thing, which is who that instruction was given to.

People in exile. People whose former things were not small. The verse is not addressed to somebody with a minor disappointment to get over; it is spoken to a nation carrying a genuine catastrophe, and it still says do not consider it.

Which means the size of a thing has never been what determines whether it gets a vote.

You were never going to be told that your Tuesday was too small to matter, and a thing of real weight has never once been allowed to vote just because it was heavy. Isaiah 43:18 speaks to people in exile and still says neither consider, and the Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has had a hundred conversations in the wrong language.

She has no idea any of this happened

Here is the practical half, and it begins with the other person, who has been entirely absent from this story.

She does not remember Tuesday.

I am confident about that in a way I am rarely confident about anything, because people do not retain four second exchanges from two years ago. She switched, which she probably does forty times a week with all sorts of people, and she has no file on you at all.

There is one person in this arrangement, and it is not her.

You have been keeping both sides of an agreement that only ever had one signature, and a closed door has never once been closed from both sides. The Spirit of God is the one with a woman who has been honoring something nobody else knows about, and Isaiah 43:18 asks for the old accounting to be set down.

Now here is what those two years actually removed, and it is worth counting properly.

A hundred conversations, with somebody warm, at a doorway, most weeks. That is a resource almost nobody has. People pay money and travel to find what has been standing at that doorway every Tuesday since the spring before last.

The one switch cost you four seconds. The arrangement cost you a hundred conversations.

You have been standing next to the best opportunity available to you, and one bad four seconds has never once been the price of two years. Isaiah 43:18 sets the old considering down in order to make room, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a woman who walks past this every week.

And here is why it will not resolve on its own, said plainly.

Nothing is going to interrupt it. She will not raise it because she does not know it exists. No week will arrive that feels like the right week, because nothing about the arrangement is uncomfortable, and comfortable things do not announce themselves.

Two years became two years by being easy. Three will too.

You are the only one who can end an arrangement this quiet, and a thing that costs nothing to continue has never once stopped by itself. The Spirit of God is the one who gets a woman to open her mouth at a familiar doorway, and the written word puts the not considering directly in front of a new thing arriving.

Same woman, same doorway

So here is the assignment, and it is exactly as small as it sounds.

Try again with the same person, in the same language, once more this week.

Her. The same doorway. The same kind of ordinary sentence you would have said in English anyway.

Not an explanation, not a fresh start, and no reference to any of this. She was not there for it and it would be a strange conversation to open.

You have one sentence to say at a doorway you pass every week, and a second attempt has never once needed to be introduced. Isaiah 43:18 asks for the not considering rather than an apology to the past, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that doorway with a woman opening her mouth for the second time in two years.

And here is what to expect, because it is very likely to be unremarkable.

She will probably answer you in her language, because most people do most of the time, and the whole thing will take eleven seconds and neither of you will think about it again.

That is not an anticlimax. That is what two years of arrangement is actually made of, and watching it turn out to be nothing is the most useful eleven seconds available to you this week. Then stop, because one sentence is the assignment and nobody owes anybody a change of habit today.

You have permission to let it be completely unremarkable, and a door that opens easily has never once meant the two years were foolish. The Spirit of God is the one at that doorway when a woman finally tries again, and Isaiah 43:18 is spoken to people whose former things were enormous.