They Still Bring It Up

It comes up every year.

Not maliciously. That is what makes it hard to do anything about. There is no villain in this, only a family with a good story and a person in it who has to sit there while it gets told.

It is usually your uncle. It arrives about an hour in, when everybody is comfortable and the plates are still on the table, and there is a particular line he does that gets the laugh, and the laugh is warm and everybody in that kitchen loves you.

And you laugh too. You have got quite good at laughing.

Four years. And it was one evening, when you were younger than you are now, and it went badly, and you have been the person that story is about ever since.

And there is nowhere to put an objection. If you said anything, you would be the one making it a thing. So you laugh, and it goes around again, and the year after that it will come up again.

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

That is a real cost and nothing here is going to pretend it is affectionate teasing and therefore fine.

It is affectionate. And it costs you something, every time, and both of those are true at once. Nobody here is going to tell you to lighten up, and nobody is going to explain that it means they love you, which is true and is not the point.

Thou shalt not be ashamed, thou shalt forget the shame

There is a line in Isaiah about shame, and what it promises is not that the event gets undone.

Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth. (Isaiah 54:4, King James Version)

Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth.

Not the event. The shame. The verse distinguishes between the thing that happened and the shame attached to it, and only one of those is described as going.

Which matters here, because the story is not going anywhere. Your uncle will tell it. What the verse is talking about is the part of it that lands in you.

You are promised the shame going rather than the story going, and an evening that will be told again has never once had to keep what it was attached to. Isaiah 54:4 separates the event from the shame and speaks only about the second, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has got good at laughing.

And notice the phrase the shame of thy youth.

It is specific. It is about the things that happened when somebody was younger and less able, and it treats those as a category with an expiry rather than as a permanent record.

You were younger. You were less able. That is not an excuse, it is a description, and the verse thinks the whole category is temporary.

You have a category with an end on it rather than a permanent file, and something you did when you were less able has never once been a description of you now. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been that story for four years, and Isaiah 54:4 names the shame of youth as a thing that gets forgotten.

You are the only person in the room who cannot laugh

Here is the practical half, and it is one observation.

Everybody at that table is laughing at a story. One person there is laughing at himself, and that is the whole difference between the noise you make and the noise they make, and it happens in the same second and sounds identical.

Which means the problem is not the telling. It is that nobody at that table has ever heard you actually laugh at it.

And the reason you have not is that it has never been out of your control. Somebody else tells it, at a time they choose, with the line they choose. You have only ever received it.

You were receiving it rather than telling it, and a story you have never once been the one to start has never once been yours. Isaiah 54:4 speaks about the shame rather than about the event, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has been laughing on cue for four years.

And here is the second half, which is the way out, and it is smaller than confronting anybody. Tell it yourself. Not at that table and not to that uncle. To one person who has never heard it, somewhere ordinary, with you doing the telling and choosing the line.

Something changes when a story comes out of your own mouth. It is the same information and it is a completely different object, and people who have done this describe the difference the same way every time: it stops being about them.

You have the telling available rather than only the hearing, and a story that comes out of your own mouth has never once been the same object as one told about you. The Spirit of God is the one with a man about to tell his own story for the first time, and Isaiah 54:4 puts the forgetting of the shame in the future and the event nowhere at all.

What this week is, with one person

So here is the assignment, and it is not cooking. Tell one person about the thing you ruined and let them laugh with you.

One person who has never heard it. Somebody outside that family, which matters, because the story has an established version in that house and you would find yourself telling theirs.

Tell it your way. Take your time on the part that is actually funny, which you know better than your uncle does because you were the one standing there. Include the detail he always leaves out.

You are telling your own version rather than inheriting one, and a story told in your own words has never once carried the weight of one told about you. Isaiah 54:4 promises the forgetting of a shame rather than the erasing of an evening, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that conversation with a man telling it himself.

Then the part that does the work, and it is one instruction: let them laugh, and laugh with them, and notice that this laugh is different from the one you do at that table. This one is yours. It is the first time in four years you have been on the same side of that story as everybody else, and the difference between the two laughs is the entire point of the exercise.

You are laughing on your own side of it for once, and a laugh you chose has never once been the same sound as one you produced on cue. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with two people and a story that finally belongs to the man telling it, and Isaiah 54:4 says thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth.