They Talked And I Was Elsewhere

He talked for about nine minutes on Tuesday and you cannot tell anybody what he said.

You were there. You made the right noises in the right places, and he did not notice anything, and it was a good walk by every visible measure.

And you got in and started the dinner and realized, standing at the counter, that the whole of it had gone past you, and something in your chest did a small unpleasant thing.

And you have not mentioned it to anybody, because there is no way to say I was not listening to my son that does not sound like a confession.

I want to say what was actually happening in your head during those nine minutes, because I suspect it was not nothing and it was not somewhere else in the way that phrase suggests.

Cumbered about much serving

There is a scene in Luke that everybody uses to talk about priorities, and the word in the middle of it is more sympathetic than the usual reading allows.

But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. (Luke 10:40, King James Version)

Martha was cumbered about much serving.

Cumbered means weighed down and drawn about, pulled in several directions by something. And notice what is doing the pulling. Not vanity. Not distraction. Serving. Actual work, for actual guests, that somebody had to do.

You are being described by a word that names a load rather than a fault, and it was never idleness or self interest that took your attention. Luke 10:40 uses a word about being weighed down by real work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as recognition rather than as the usual telling off.

And notice that she is in the room. She is not away somewhere. She is present, physically, doing something necessary, and her mind is on the next four things because the next four things are hers.

You have been in the room the whole time, and it was never absence that anybody was doing. The written word puts her in the house with the work in her hands, and the Spirit of God is what keeps a woman from calling herself gone.

What was actually in your head

Now let me say what those nine minutes probably contained, because I doubt it was daydreaming.

Dinner. Whether there is enough of the thing. Whether the middle one has that form. What time the youngest needs to be somewhere on Thursday. Whether you remembered to reply to that message.

Every one of those is work for the household, and about half of them are for the boy who was talking to you.

That is not somewhere else. That is being in two places, both of which are your family, and the fact that one of them is invisible is the only reason it feels like a failure.

Being elsewhere is not absence, and the work that took your attention was work you were doing for the people you were walking with.

You are not a mother who does not listen, and it was never inattention that ran under those nine minutes. Luke 10 names the being weighed down by serving without calling the serving worthless, which is exactly why the Spirit of God does not require a woman to despise the list in order to put it down.

And here is the thing that will actually help. The list does not need to be dismissed. It needs a place to be put, and it has never once had one, so it comes on every walk because there is nowhere else for it to go.

Put it down at the door, out loud

So the practical part, and it is a specific and slightly odd thing to do.

Before you leave, stand at the front door and say the list out loud. Then say: that is for after.

You are able to set something down somewhere rather than fight it, and it has never once been possible to attend to two households at once. The passage names the load without ever calling it unnecessary, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman naming four things at her own front door.

Out loud, and not in your head, because in your head is where it already lives and where it does not stay put.

Dinner. The form. Thursday. The message. Four things, twelve seconds, and then: that is for after.

And it will come back. Around minute four it will come back, and when it does, say to yourself: after, and let it go past. You do not have to argue with it, and arguing takes more attention than the list does.

You are able to let it come back and go past, and it has never once required winning to have kept your attention where you put it. Luke 10:40 records the cumbering plainly, and the Spirit of God is the one who is present with a mother saying four words at a doorstep.