I Eat In The Van Between Jobs

Both meals, in the driver's seat.

That is most days. Something at about half past ten with the engine off and the radio on, and something else at three in a different street, and by the time you get home at seven the actual eating of the day is over.

So at home you have something. Standing up, usually, because you are not hungry and because sitting down at that point feels like a thing that would take effort you have not got.

And the day has no edge in it. There is no moment where the working part stops and the rest of it starts. It runs from the alarm to the television and there is no line anywhere in the middle.

You have noticed this. It is not new information. What is new is nothing, which is roughly why you are reading an article about it.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything practical.

Nothing here is going to suggest you eat differently at work.

Not a better lunch, not a plan, not anything at all about that seat, because the van is how the job works and the job is not negotiable and anybody who has not done that work should not be issuing instructions about it. What follows is entirely about the evening.

Come ye yourselves apart, and rest a while

There is a moment in Mark where a group of working people get an instruction, and the reason given for it is unusually practical.

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (Mark 6:31, King James Version)

They had no leisure so much as to eat.

That is the diagnosis, and it is about the eating specifically. Not that they were tired in general. That there were so many coming and going that no meal had any room in it.

And the response is not a longer break or a change to the work. It is come ye yourselves apart, which is about a location, and rest a while, which is about a length.

You are being given a location and a length rather than a change to the work, and a job that does not stop has never once been the thing that ruled out an evening. Mark 6:31 names the eating specifically as the thing that had gone, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who eats twice a day in a driver's seat.

And notice the word apart.

Apart from the coming and going. The instruction is not to stop working, and the work is waiting for them the moment it is over. The apart is a place, briefly, that is not the place where the day happens.

You have an apart available rather than a slower life, and a place that is not where the day happens has never once needed to be far away. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody whose day runs from an alarm to a television with no line in it, and Mark 6:31 asks for a location and a while rather than for anything permanent.

What the line is actually for

Here is the practical half, and it is one observation about the shape of the day.

A day without a line in it does not finish. It stops, at some point, when a person falls asleep, and the difference between those two is enormous and is entirely about whether there was a marked end to the working part.

And you do not have one. The van, the drive home, the standing up with something, the television. Every one of those is a continuation, and none of them says out loud that the working part is over.

And the thing that has always done that job, in every culture there has ever been, is a meal at a table.

You were missing a line rather than missing rest, and a day that stopped has never once been the same thing as a day that finished. Mark 6:31 sends people apart specifically because the eating had gone, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man whose day runs to the television without a break in it.

And here is the second half, which is about the not being hungry, because that is the real objection and it is a fair one. By seven you have eaten twice and the appetite is not there.

So this is not about food. Make it small. Eggs, or something on toast, or half of what you would normally have, and the size genuinely does not matter, because the meal is doing a different job tonight.

It is not feeding you. It is drawing the line.

You have a line to draw rather than a meal to eat, and a small plate at a table has never once been too little to end a day with. The Spirit of God is the one in that kitchen with a man who is not hungry, and Mark 6:31 treats the eating as the thing worth going apart for.

What tonight is, at that table

So here is the assignment. Lay the table tonight and eat one meal at it with whoever is in the house.

Lay it, however small the food is. A plate, cutlery, a glass, for however many people are home, and if that is one then one. And sit down.

And here is the practical instruction for a man who comes in at seven: do it before the television. Not after, because after does not happen, and everybody who has ever tried to add something to the end of an evening knows that.

You are putting it before the television rather than after it, and a thing done first has never once been the thing that got dropped. Mark 6:31 puts the going apart before anything else resumes, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room with a man laying a plate down at ten past seven.

Then the part that does the work, and it is one instruction: stay at the table for ten minutes after the food is gone. That is the whole of it and it is the part that actually draws the line, because eating quickly and standing up again is what the van already is.

Ten minutes, sitting, with the working day behind you and the rest of the evening in front, and whoever is in that house at that moment is enough. One other person, or none, and a man alone at a table for ten minutes has ended his day in the way people have ended days for as long as there have been tables.

You are ending a day rather than getting through one, and ten minutes at a table has never once needed anybody else at it to be a real ending. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with a man who has finished work, and Mark 6:31 names a length rather than a quantity.