The Last One Who Speaks It Is Old Now

She is eighty seven and she is the only one left who has it.

Not the only one in the world. The only one in your family, which for this purpose is the same thing, because the words you want are the words your people used and not the words in a book.

And every time you visit, you mean to ask her properly. And every time, there is tea and somebody else is there and the afternoon goes, and you drive away having asked her nothing and meaning to come back with a notebook.

That has happened about nine times now.

And underneath it there is a thing you do not say out loud, which is that there is a clock running and you cannot see the face of it.

Let me name what that does to a man, because it is doing something specific.

It makes the whole thing feel enormous. If she is the only source, then every visit is the visit, and asking one small question feels almost insulting against the size of what is at stake, and so you keep waiting for the right conditions to ask a big enough question.

And the waiting is the thing that has cost you nine afternoons.

I want to say the true thing before anything useful.

The urgency is real and it is not helping you, and those two facts have been holding hands in your chest for a year.

So I am not going to tell you there is plenty of time. Neither of us knows that and you would stop reading. And I am not going to tell you to relax about it, because the pressure you feel is proportionate and telling somebody to stop caring about a real thing is not ministry.

What I can do is take the size off the individual afternoon.

Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation

There is a prayer in Psalm seventy one that is prayed by an old person, and it is the only thing they ask for.

Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. (Psalm 71:18, King James Version)

Until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation.

Stay on the word until, because it tells you what the old man is actually asking for. He is not asking for more years for their own sake. He is asking to be kept here for a purpose, and the purpose is handing something to the people coming after him.

You have been worrying about a clock while the person it belongs to is praying to be used, and an old person's remaining time has never once been theirs to spend on themselves. Psalm 71:18 makes the asking entirely about the next generation, and the Holy Spirit is the one sitting with a man who has driven away nine times.

Now consider what that means about the visits, because it turns them over.

Those questions have been filed as a demand on her. Something taken from a woman who is tired, which is why asking feels rude and why it keeps not happening.

The psalm has an old person asking for exactly the thing you have been too polite to request.

You have never once been taking something from her, and a question asked of somebody older has never once been a withdrawal from them. The Holy Spirit is the one who put that prayer in the mouth of an old person before anybody younger asked, and Psalm 71:18 makes the showing the whole reason for the staying.

And here is the third thing, which is about the size of what gets handed over.

Thy strength. Thy power. Not a complete account. Not everything he knows. The psalm asks to show something rather than to transfer all of it, and there is no version of that prayer where the old man is anxious about how much he can finish.

You were never required to get all of it, and a portion handed over in one afternoon has never once been a failure to get the rest. Psalm 71:18 asks to show rather than to complete, and the Spirit of God is the one with a man who has been waiting for a big enough question.

Ten small askings beat one big one

Here is the practical half, and it is about why the nine afternoons went the way they did.

The big question does not exist. That is the thing to see, and once it is seen the pressure drops off the visit.

There is no single question that gets a language out of a person. You cannot ask her to give you the language, because she does not have it in that shape. She has it the way everybody has a language, which is one word at a time, attached to objects and afternoons and people, and it comes out in response to small specific prompts rather than to large ones.

What does it in that house. What did your mother call that. What do you say when somebody sneezes.

You have been waiting to ask a question that nobody could answer, and a small specific asking has never once got less out of somebody than a large one. The Spirit of God is the one with a man who has been meaning to do this properly for a year, and Psalm 71:18 has an old person asking to show rather than to finish.

Now here is the thing about the tea and the other people in the room, which you have been treating as an obstacle.

They are not in the way. An afternoon with three people in it and tea going is the natural home of exactly the words you want, because those words live in ordinary domestic moments and not in an interview.

Ask her what the thing in her hand is called. That takes eleven seconds, it happens in front of everybody, nobody has to leave, and it produces exactly the kind of word you are trying to get.

You have been waiting for a room you do not need, and a word asked for over tea has never once been a smaller word than one asked for in private. Psalm 71:18 makes the showing ordinary and continuous rather than ceremonial, and the Holy Spirit is the one in a front room with a teapot and four people.

And here is what the nine afternoons have actually cost, said plainly and without any scolding.

Nine words. If you had asked one small thing each time, you would have nine words in her exact voice with her exact emphasis, and each one would have taken eleven seconds out of an afternoon that was happening anyway.

The size of the question is what cost you the nine, and nothing else did.

You are the one who sets the size of the asking, and nine small questions has never once been a smaller offering than one big one. The Spirit of God is the one who moves a man to ask about a teacup, and the written word has an old person asking to be kept until the showing is done.

One word, and ask her today

So here is the assignment, and it is eleven seconds long.

Learn one word your family would have used and say it to somebody in the family.

Go this week. Do not take a plan. Take a pen and something to write on, in your pocket, and one small question.

Ask her what she calls the thing in front of her. The cup, the chair, the weather out of the window. One thing.

You have one small question that fits inside an afternoon that is happening anyway, and eleven seconds has never once been an imposition on anybody. Psalm 71:18 has the old person asking to show rather than to hand over everything, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man asking his grandmother what she calls a teacup.

And here is the second half, which is the part that matters more than the word.

Say it back to her. Out loud, badly, in front of whoever is in the room. Let her correct you. Let her say it again.

Because that is the moment the psalm is about. That is the showing, and she has been praying for it in some form for years without anybody realizing, and it is not a burden landing on an old woman, it is a request being answered. Then stop, because one word is the assignment and neither of you owes the other a lesson.

You have permission to take one word and leave, and one word said back to her has never once been a smaller gift than an hour of her time. The Spirit of God is the one in the room when an old woman hears her own word come back, and Psalm 71:18 asks for exactly this and nothing else.