One Of Us Left

There were five of you.

You can still see the shape of it. Two at the top who were practically a separate family, and then you, and then the two little ones. There were photographs where somebody was always missing because somebody was always off somewhere.

And now there is one. Your sister, who is seventy nine, and who lives about two hours away, and whom you speak to about four times a year.

Four times a year. That is the number and you did not choose it. It was set about fifty years ago, when everybody was busy and there were children and jobs and it was easier to catch up at Christmas.

Nobody ever revised it. And you are both still on a schedule that two young women set in about 1974.

The habit that outlived its reason

Let me name what has actually kept this at four times a year, because it is not distance and it is not feeling.

It is a groove. Fifty years ago there were real reasons: young families, a working week, a train journey that took most of a day. Those reasons produced a rhythm, and the rhythm became a habit, and habits do not check whether their reasons are still there.

The reasons went. The rhythm did not.

You have been running a schedule that stopped having a cause decades ago, and no habit has ever once been able to notice on its own that it had outlived its reason. Psalm 90:12 says so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom, which is the written word making a count into a source of good sense, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can show a person a groove they have been standing in since 1974.

And she is a whole woman, seventy nine, sitting somewhere two hours away. She almost certainly has the same thought about four times a year, and the same assumption that this is simply how the two of you are.

She is right about at least one thing you have never conceded, and neither of you has ever suggested changing it, because neither of you has noticed it is a decision.

You are able to change a rhythm nobody ever set on purpose, and a habit two young women made has never once been binding on two old ones. The Spirit of God is what makes an obvious thing visible after fifty years, and it is written in Psalm 90 that the numbering of days is what produces wisdom.

Teach us to number our days

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12, King James Version)

That verse is often read as a solemn reminder and it is actually a practical request.

Teach us to number. Counting is the request. Not: help us to feel the shortness of life, and not: make us properly grave about it. Teach us to do arithmetic, because a person who has done the arithmetic behaves differently from a person who has not.

And the purpose clause is at the end. That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. The counting is for the sake of acting sensibly.

You are being asked to do a sum rather than to feel something, and no amount of solemnity has ever once done what one honest count does. It is written in Psalm 90:12 that we number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom, which is the written word putting the arithmetic before the wisdom, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can make a person do the sum without it becoming morbid.

So do it. Four times a year, and two women in their late seventies. That is a number, and it is not a large one, and it has been running on a groove rather than on a decision.

That is not a reason for dread. It is a reason to move a habit that nobody is defending.

You are able to look at a number without it becoming frightening, and doing arithmetic honestly has never once been the same as being morbid. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a count into a practical thing, and Psalm 90 puts the numbering entirely in the service of applying the heart to wisdom.

Tuesdays

Here is the practical thing and it is deliberately unremarkable.

Move it from four times a year to a Tuesday.

Not a big call. Not a visit that has to be arranged, which is what makes visits so infrequent. A Tuesday, once a week, for eleven minutes, about nothing.

You are able to make an ordinary weekly thing where an occasional thing has been, and eleven minutes has never once needed a reason behind it. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes a small standing arrangement possible after fifty years, and it is written that we number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

The reason it has to be small is that a big change requires a conversation, and a conversation about why the two of you only speak four times a year would be uncomfortable and neither of you would enjoy it. So skip that entirely.

Send one short message. Nothing about the fifty years. Nothing about how often you speak. Something ordinary, and then next Tuesday, something else ordinary.

After about six weeks it will be a thing the two of you do, and neither of you will have had to discuss it, and that is the whole plan.

You are able to build something ordinary without ever discussing it, and a standing habit has never once required an agreement to begin. The Spirit of God is what turns an occasional contact into a weekly one without anybody having to name it, and Psalm 90:12 asks for the count precisely so that something can be done about it.