He Has Passed Me And We Both Know It

It happened somewhere in the last year and neither of you marked it.

There was a point at which you were still ahead, and a period where it was level and neither of you would have said so, and now it is not level and has not been for a while.

And what you have got at that table is a small permanent piece of politeness. He asks you things he does not need to ask. You answer things you are not certain about. And both of you are managing a fact that neither of you will name.

That politeness is more tiring than the subject ever was.

And I want to say something about it that may not be obvious: the awkwardness is not because he passed you. It is because nobody said so.

Now also when I am old and grayheaded

There is a request in Psalm 71 from a man near the end of his usefulness, and what he asks for is surprising.

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)

He does not ask to be restored. He does not ask for his old capability back.

He asks for time to show something to the generation coming up. His request is about transmission, not about performance.

You have been handed a different job rather than a demotion, and no man has ever once run out of usefulness at the moment he ran out of knowledge. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that an actual reassignment instead of a consolation, and Psalm 71:18 asks for the showing rather than for the strength.

And notice he is completely candid about the position. Old and grayheaded. He does not pretend otherwise for a single clause.

You were never required to keep up, and scripture has never once asked a man to conceal where he is in his own life. The Spirit of God is the one who lets a person be accurate about themselves without it being a defeat, and the written word states the situation plainly and then asks for something.

What the politeness costs

Let me count what the unsaid thing is taking, because it is more than an atmosphere.

He asks you questions he does not need answers to. Which means some of the ten minutes is a performance, given by a child, for the benefit of his father.

That is a heavy thing for a boy to be carrying, and he took it up himself, out of kindness, because he worked out the situation before either of you said anything.

You have a child managing a thing he should never have been left to manage, and no boy anywhere has ever once been able to say it first. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a father whose job the saying actually is, and Psalm 71:18 has the older man speak plainly about his own position.

And the second cost is yours.

Every unsaid thing in a room requires energy. Not much, continuously. And that energy is coming out of the same budget as the ten minutes, which is why a subject you used to enjoy now feels like work.

You have been paying to maintain a silence, and a silence has never once been free to anybody keeping one. The Spirit of God is the one who makes the saying possible, and the written word puts the plain statement first and the request second.

You were never diminished by the fact itself, and nobody has ever once lost anything by being overtaken by their own child. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes the new job real rather than a soft landing, and Psalm 71:18 reassigns the man rather than retiring him.

Say it first, tonight

So here is the assignment, and it is one sentence and the timing is the whole of it.

Tonight, say it out loud first.

You know more about this than I do now.

Flat. Ordinary. No self deprecation on the end, because self deprecation asks him to contradict you, and contradicting you is exactly the job he has been doing all year.

You have nine plain words available tonight, and nine words have never once been too few to end a year of politeness. The Spirit of God is the one who gets a hard sentence out on the fourth attempt, and Psalm 71:18 has a man state his own position without softening a syllable.

Then, without a pause, add the second sentence. Which is not: so I will leave you to it.

It is: so talk me through it, I want to follow it.

That second sentence is the whole reassignment. It moves you from somebody supplying answers to somebody the work gets explained to, and being the person a thing is explained to is a real position with real value, and it is one you can hold for the next twenty years.

Psalm 71:18 asks for the showing rather than the strength, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is at a table where a man names his own position and then asks to be told something.

You are permitted to say it before he has to, and going first has never once been the same thing as giving up. The Spirit of God is the one who supplies the second sentence, and the written word has the older man state the situation and then ask for a job.

You have a position available for the rest of his education, and it has never once depended on you understanding the material. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes a listener into a genuine presence at a table, and Psalm 71:18 makes the transmission the request.