Four Generations Of Not Saying It

There is a thing about your grandfather that every adult in that family knows and nobody has ever said out loud.

Not a scandal. Something ordinary and large, of the kind that shapes a household. And the way it is handled is that it is referred to sideways, in a particular tone, with a phrase everybody understands, and then the conversation moves on within about four seconds.

That method was in place before you were born. Your mother uses it. Her mother used it. Your niece, who is twenty three, has already picked it up, and you watched her do it at Easter and something in you went cold.

Four generations of a family with a method for not saying things, and it works, and it is the reason nobody in that family has had a difficult conversation since about 1961.

The method and what it was for

Let me say something fair about the method before taking it apart.

It was built for a reason. Somewhere back there, saying a true thing in that family had a cost that somebody could not pay, and a way of talking developed that let people stay in the room together without anybody having to bear it.

That is not cowardice. In its first generation it was almost certainly protective, and it may well have kept a family together.

You have inherited a method rather than a fault, and no way of talking built to protect people has ever once been evidence of weakness in the ones who built it. Ephesians 4:25 says wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another, which is the written word setting the alternative, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary true sentence sayable in a room that has never heard one.

And every person in that line is a whole human being. Your mother did not choose this. She was handed a way of speaking by a woman who was handed it by another woman, and nobody in the chain was ever offered a different one.

She is right about at least one thing you have never conceded, and this article is not a case against any of them.

You are able to end a method without indicting the people who ran it, and stopping something has never once required a family to be found guilty. The Spirit of God is what makes an ending possible without a trial, and it is written in Ephesians 4 that we speak truth because we are members one of another.

Speak every man truth with his neighbor

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25, King James Version)

The reason clause at the end is the part that makes this bearable, so start there.

For we are members one of another. That is a body image. Paul is saying that people who belong together are like parts of a single body, and a body that cannot pass information between its parts is in trouble, whatever else is going well.

So the truth telling is not a moral demand made of individuals. It is a functional requirement of a body.

You are part of something that needs information to move through it, and no family has ever once been able to work well while its true things travel sideways. It is written in Ephesians 4:25 that we speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another, which is the written word giving the reason rather than only the rule, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a first sentence possible in a family that has not had one in sixty years.

And notice what Paul calls the alternative. Putting away lying. That is a strong word for what your family does, and it is worth sitting with rather than flinching from.

Nobody in that kitchen tells lies. But a method that reliably prevents a true thing from being said produces the same result as a lie, which is a room full of people who do not know what is actually the case.

You are able to put away something that was never called a lie, and a family method has never once been made harmless by everybody knowing it is happening. The Spirit of God is the one who names a thing accurately without cruelty, and Ephesians 4 puts the truth telling on the ground of belonging.

One true sentence

Here is the practical part, and it is smaller than the problem by design.

Nobody here is asking for the thing about your grandfather. Not this year, possibly not ever, and that is not what is being asked.

One true sentence about something small.

You are able to say one small true thing out loud, and a first sentence has never once needed to be the hardest one available. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present in an ordinary sentence in a kitchen, and it is written that we speak truth because we are members one of another.

Something like: I found this week hard. Or: I do not want to go on Saturday. Or: that hurt my feelings. Said plainly, without a joke on the end of it, and without the tone.

The tone is the thing to watch. Your family has a way of delivering a true thing that signals it is not to be taken seriously, and it is done so smoothly that people do it without knowing. Say it flat.

And there will be about three seconds afterward where nobody knows what to do, because the method is not available and nothing has replaced it yet. Let those three seconds happen.

You are able to survive three seconds nobody knows what to do with, and one flat sentence has never once broken a family. The Spirit of God is what holds a room that has lost its usual exit, and Ephesians 4:25 makes the truth telling a matter of a body working rather than a rule being kept.