Somewhere To Set The Cup Down

You carried it around the house.

The cup, this morning. You made it, and then somebody said something, and you walked into the hall with it, and then into the front room, and then back, and you were still holding it eleven minutes later.

That is not absent mindedness. There was nowhere to set it down that did not involve moving something first, so you carried it, and your hands were occupied for eleven minutes for no reason at all.

That happens several times a day and the cumulative effect is a specific and underrated kind of tired.

Here is what I want to say about the tiredness, because I think you have been misattributing it.

You have assumed you are tired because there is too much in the house. That is the natural conclusion and it points at a solution that involves getting rid of things, which is enormous and which you are not going to do.

I do not think that is it. I think you are tired because there is not enough room, which is a different sentence with a much smaller answer in it.

And there is an instruction in Isaiah that goes in exactly that direction.

Make the place of your tent wider

There is a command in Isaiah given to somebody with no reason to expect growth, and its direction is outward.

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. (Isaiah 54:2, King James Version)

Enlarge. Stretch forth. Lengthen. Every verb in that verse is about making the space bigger.

Not one of them is about reducing the contents. The instruction is entirely directed at the boundaries of the dwelling, and the whole idea is that there should be more room in it.

You are told to enlarge the place, and enlarging has never once been the same as emptying. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who carried a cup around her own house for eleven minutes, and Isaiah 54:2 pushes the walls outward and says nothing at all about the contents.

And notice the phrase spare not.

That is the opposite of careful. It is an instruction to be generous about it, which is not language anybody uses about domestic space, where the assumption is always that room is scarce and must be allocated efficiently.

You are being told to be generous with room, and nobody has ever once told you that about your own house. The written word says spare not about the size of a dwelling, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with a woman who has never in her life been told to make more room rather than less mess.

Room is not the opposite of things

Let me make the distinction, because everything written on this subject collapses these two.

Less stuff and more room are not the same instruction. They point in opposite directions and they have completely different costs.

Less stuff means deciding, parting, defending decisions to a family, and grieving small things. It is expensive and slow and most people never do it.

More room means one surface, cleared, kept. That is it.

You have two completely different instructions and have only ever been offered one, and the expensive one has never once been the only option. The Holy Spirit is the one present with a woman who has assumed for years that the only answer involves parting with things, and Isaiah 54:2 gives every verb to enlarging and none to reducing.

And here is what more room actually gives you, at a foot of table.

Somewhere to set the cup down. Somewhere to put the bag while you take your coat off. Somewhere to rest your hands for a second while you think.

Those are the moments a day is made of, and there have been none of them available in your house in years.

You are getting back the moments a day is actually made of, and no cleared foot of table has ever once been about appearances. The written word directs the whole of its energy at the size of the space, and the Spirit of God is the one who steadies a woman who has been holding things for years.

One foot of table

So here is the assignment, and it is one foot.

Clear one foot of table or counter and put nothing on it for a week.

Not so it looks better. So there is somewhere to put a cup down.

You are making somewhere to set a cup down, and that has never once needed to be more than a foot wide. The Holy Spirit is the one who is with a woman setting a cup down without moving anything, and Isaiah 54:2 tells a household to enlarge its own space and to be generous about it.

And notice what you are not being asked to do.

Nothing is leaving. Nobody is deciding anything. The rest of the house is exactly as it was, and the whole of the change is one foot of surface, which is the enlarging at the smallest scale it can happen at.

You are enlarging without removing one thing, and enlarging has never once required a single item to leave. The written word lengthens the cords and says nothing whatsoever about the contents, and the Spirit of God is the one present with a woman whose house is exactly as full and has a foot of table in it.