I Nodded All The Way Through

You lost it about nine words in.

That is the honest timing, and it is worth having exactly, because the rest of what happened follows from it.

Nine words in, a term went past that meant nothing, and there was a half second where the whole thing could have been stopped, and it was not stopped, and after that the momentum belonged to him.

And then there was the nodding, which went on for a further two minutes.

And the nodding was not dishonesty. It was kindness, mostly. He was explaining something with real care and he was pleased to be explaining it, and stopping him would have taken something away from that.

And it was also a small piece of self protection, and that half is worth admitting too.

And now there is a machine, and a decision to be made about it, and the information required to make the decision went past you two minutes into a conversation on Tuesday and it is not recoverable.

You are a woman who has been nodding to be kind and not a woman who is out of her depth, and a nod that went on too long has never once been proof that somebody could not have understood.

The ear of the wise seeketh knowledge

There is a proverb about how knowledge gets acquired, and the verbs in it are all active.

The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge. (Proverbs 18:15, King James Version)

The ear of the wise seeketh.

An ear that seeks. That is an odd and deliberate image, because an ear is the passive organ in most people's picture of a conversation. Sound arrives at it. It does not go anywhere.

And the proverb says the wise ear goes looking. It interrupts. It asks. It reaches out for the thing rather than waiting for the thing to be delivered in a usable shape.

You are permitted to reach for something in the middle of a sentence, and an ear that stops somebody and asks has never once been a less wise ear than one that waited politely. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who has been replaying a Tuesday conversation, and Proverbs 18:15 gives the ear an active verb.

And notice both halves of that verse use getting words.

Getteth. Seeketh. The prudent heart obtains and the wise ear goes after. Neither of them receives. Knowledge in that proverb is something a person goes and takes hold of, and the taking hold of is what the wisdom consists in.

You are being described as wise precisely when you go after something, and a person who asks in the middle has never once been the person that proverb considers foolish. The written word gives both clauses active verbs, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a question possible mid sentence.

And there is something quietly freeing in the word prudent.

Prudent is not clever. Prudent is careful, practical, sensible about how things actually work. The prudent person in that verse is not the one who already knows. They are the one who gets it, because getting it is the sensible thing to do.

You are being sensible rather than showing a gap, and a woman who obtains what she needs to decide has never once been a woman displaying a weakness. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes the exposure out of an ordinary question, and Proverbs 18:15 calls the getting prudence.

Six words, practiced somewhere small

Something practical, and it is a rehearsal rather than a confrontation.

The sentence to learn is: I do not know what that is.

Six words. Flat, no apology, no small laugh, no sorry in front of it. Not I am a bit lost, which invites reassurance instead of explanation. Not could you go over that again, which is vague enough to produce the same explanation at the same speed.

I do not know what that is. Then stop and wait.

You have six words available that change every conversation of this kind, and a plain admission of not knowing has never once been the thing that cost a woman her standing in a room. The written word makes the seeking the mark of wisdom, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes six words possible in the middle of somebody else's sentence.

Now here is the method, and the method is the point.

Do not save it for the important conversation. Practice it somewhere small. Tomorrow, with anybody, about anything at all. When somebody uses a word or a reference or a name that means nothing, say the six words then, in a context where nothing whatever is at stake.

The first time is hard because the sentence has never been said. The fourth time is nothing. And the fourth time is the one that will be available when a man is standing in your kitchen explaining a machine.

You are able to practice a sentence where nothing depends on it, and a phrase rehearsed in an ordinary conversation has never once been unavailable in an important one. The Holy Spirit is the one present in the small conversation as much as in the large one, and Proverbs 18:15 has the wise ear seeking as an ordinary habit.

And when the real one comes, the machine explanation, notice what actually happens. People slow down when asked. They use different words. Most of them are glad, because the alternative is talking to a face that has gone polite, and every person who explains things for a living knows that face.