I Married In And I Do It Too

You did nine years at the edge of this family.

You remember the specifics. The in-jokes you laughed at slightly late. The Christmas where you did not know where to put yourself between about two and four. The particular way an aunt used to introduce you.

And then, somewhere around year nine, it turned. Somebody teased you properly, and you were asked to carry something rather than offered a seat, and you were in.

That was eleven years ago. And at the last gathering there was a young man standing near the door with a drink in his hand, and you looked over at him, and you did not go across.

And nobody is doing anything to him. He is being spoken to. He has a drink. Somebody asked him about the drive and somebody else asked about his work in the way people do when they are not going to follow it up.

He is exactly where you were for nine years, and there is one person in that room who knows what it is like, and that person stayed by the window.

Why the ones who were let in are the worst at it

Let me name what happens, because it is one of the strangest and most reliable things in families.

The people who had to earn their way into a family are very often the strictest about the next person doing the same. Not out of malice. Out of something closer to accounting.

Nine years cost you something. And a part of you, without ever putting it in words, registered that as the price of belonging, and a price paid is a price that ought to be paid by everybody, because otherwise what were the nine years.

You have been keeping a price you paid rather than a rule anybody wrote, and no cost anybody bore has ever once become an obligation on the next person through the door. Exodus 23:9 says thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt, which is the written word aiming the instruction at the people who remember, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a memory into a reason to move rather than a reason to stand still.

And he is a whole man, the one by the door. He is doing exactly what you did, which is being slightly better behaved than he actually is, and laughing slightly late, and working out the geography of a room.

He is right about at least one thing nobody has conceded to him yet.

You are able to recognize somebody doing what you did, and having been on that side of the room has never once been the same as remembering it. The Spirit of God is what keeps a memory active rather than filed, and it is written in Exodus 23 that the ones addressed are the ones who know the heart of a stranger.

Ye know the heart of a stranger

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Exodus 23:9, King James Version)

Notice the reason God attaches, because He could have given several and He gives this one.

Not: because it is wrong. Not: because I said so. For ye know the heart of a stranger. The argument is memory, and it is aimed precisely at the people who have been on the other side of it.

God assumes the memory is there and He assumes it is enough.

You have been handed a command whose entire force is a thing you already remember, and no experience of standing at an edge has ever once been given to somebody for nothing. It is written in Exodus 23:9 that ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt, which is the written word turning a memory into an instruction, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings nine years back to a man at exactly the right moment.

And there is something honest in the verse about what happens to people who came in from outside. God evidently expects that they will need telling. He does not assume that the formerly excluded are naturally generous about it.

That is not cynical. It is accurate, and it is a relief, because it means what you have been doing is ordinary and expected rather than a peculiar failing.

You are able to be told a thing God expected to have to say, and needing the reminder has never once meant something is wrong with a man. The Spirit of God is the one who says it without contempt, and Exodus 23 gives the command to people who had every reason to know better and needed it anyway.

Crossing the room

Here is the practical part, and it takes about four seconds and one sentence.

Go across.

Not with a speech. Not with an explanation about how you remember what it was like, which would be about you and would make him the object of a story. Just go and stand next to him and say something ordinary.

You are able to cross a room, and four steps has never once required anybody to know why you took them. The Holy Spirit is the one who moves a man off a spot at a gathering, and it is written that ye know the heart of a stranger.

Then do the thing that ended your nine years, whatever it was. Ask him to carry something. Tell him one piece of unsanitized family information. Tease him gently about something small.

You know precisely which move works, because it was done to you once and you have never forgotten the day it happened.

You have the exact instrument in your hand, and no man who spent nine years at an edge has ever once been unsure what would have helped. The Spirit of God is what puts a memory to work, and Exodus 23:9 makes the knowing of that heart the whole basis of the command.