You Were Kinder Out There

You watched them be kind to each other for six days, and you have not been able to work out how to say so.

Because it is true and it is lovely and the sentence has a trap in it.

You saw your son wait for his own son to finish a sentence, which he does not do here. You saw the two girls, who fight, sit together on a step for about forty minutes. You saw your daughter in law ask somebody a question and then listen to the answer without doing something else at the same time.

Six days of that, and you noticed all of it, because that is what you do.

And you cannot say it. Because every version of the sentence carries a second half that you do not mean and that everybody will hear. You were kind to each other out there, and the implication arrives before you have finished speaking, which is: and you are not, here.

So you have said nothing, and it is three weeks now, and it is one of the best things you have seen in that family in years.

Whatsoever things are lovely

There is an instruction at the end of Philippians about what to put your mind on, and it is more specific than the general encouragement people make of it.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8, King James Version)

You have an instruction in the written word to put your mind on the specific good things, and no risk of how a sentence might land has ever once canceled it. Philippians 4:8 lists six categories and then says think on these things rather than telling anybody to be positive in general, and the Holy Spirit is the one who applies a list like that to six specific days.

Look at how the list works. It is not one word. It is six, and every one of them is a category with actual things in it: true things, honest things, just things, pure things, lovely things, things of good report.

That is a sorting instruction. It assumes a person is looking at a mixture and choosing what to give their attention to.

You are able to choose which true things to think about, and choosing has never once been the same thing as pretending the rest are not there. It is written whatsoever things are lovely, think on these things, which is a selection from a mixed field rather than a verdict about the whole of it, and the Spirit of God is what makes a woman's noticing into an instruction rather than a temptation.

And notice the last phrase in the list. Whatsoever things are of good report.

Of good report means: worth reporting. Worth saying out loud to somebody. The list does not end at thinking, it ends at the kind of thing that gets carried and told.

You are holding something the written word calls worth reporting, and three weeks of not saying it has never once made it less so. The Holy Spirit is the one who moves a thing from a woman's noticing into her mouth, and Philippians 4 finishes its list with what is of good report.

The comparison is not in the sentence, it is in the shape

Now the practical part, and it is about why the sentence carries a second half and how to build one that does not.

The trap is not the words. It is the frame. Out there is a comparison, and any sentence with out there in it has here waiting behind it, and everybody in your family will supply the second half themselves.

So the fix is to take the frame out and keep the content.

You are able to say the same thing without the frame, and removing the comparison has never once removed what you actually saw. The Spirit of God is what shows a person the difference between a content and a shape, and it is written that the list is of specific things rather than of comparisons between people.

And here is how, and it is one change. Do not describe the week. Describe one thing.

Not the summary version, the one about everybody having been so kind to each other out there. A summary is always a comparison, because it is a judgment about a period, and a judgment about one period implies a judgment about the others.

Say instead: I saw you wait for him to finish what he was saying, on the Tuesday, at the table. That is one event, with a date and a person in it, and an event cannot be a comparison because it happened once.

You are able to give somebody one dated event rather than a summary, and the smallness of it has never once made it a smaller gift. It is written whatsoever things are of good report, which is a category of specific things, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when an older woman says a precise true thing to somebody who did not know she saw it.

And here is what an event does that a summary cannot. It tells the person that they were seen doing a particular thing at a particular moment, which is much rarer and much better than being told they were nice.

Nobody in this world gets told what they were seen doing. Almost everybody gets told they are lovely.

One thing, to the person, with nothing attached

So here is the assignment.

Name one specific kind thing you saw, to the person who did it. With no comparison attached.

The choosing first. Pick one event, with a person, a moment and a detail in it. And pick the one that would surprise them, which is usually the smallest, because people know about their large kindnesses and not about their small ones.

You are able to choose the thing they do not know you noticed, and it has never once needed to be the biggest one to be the one worth saying. Philippians 4:8 names lovely and of good report among the categories, and the Spirit of God is with a woman working out which forty seconds to describe.

Then say it, and here is the wording that keeps the frame out. No out there. No on holiday. No that week. Say: I saw you wait for him to finish what he was saying, at that table. I have thought about it since.

And then stop, which is where the whole thing is won or lost.

You are able to say it and add nothing, and stopping there has never once been you leaving something unsaid. It is written think on these things, which is where the instruction ends rather than continuing into a comparison, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds an older woman's tongue after twelve words.

Because if you add anything, you will add the frame. Even a warm addition, like it was so lovely to see, brings the whole week back into the sentence, and once the week is in the sentence the comparison is in it too.

One event. One person. Then stop.

And then do it again in a month with a different one. Four of those, spread out over a year, and the whole thing that has gone unsaid for three weeks will have been said, and nobody will ever have heard a criticism in any of it.