The Mother at the School Gate

The gate opens at ten to nine and Priya has taken to arriving at eight fifty six, which gives her four minutes, which is enough to get Ravi through the door and not enough to stand about.

She has been doing that for two years.

The reason is a woman called Steph, who is perfectly nice, and who has never once said anything, and who was at the gate on the morning Priya should not have been driving. Nothing happened. Priya wants that on the record and it is true. She got there, and she got Ravi out of the car, and Steph looked at her for about a second and a half longer than a person looks at somebody, and then said good morning, and that was the whole of it.

Two years ago. Steph has never mentioned it. Steph asks after Ravi and once brought round a parcel that had gone to the wrong house. There is no evidence that Steph thinks about it at all.

But Steph has it. Somewhere in her head is a two second piece of film of Priya at eight fifty on a Tuesday morning, and Priya cannot get at it, and cannot edit it, and cannot ask about it without making it enormous. So she arrives at eight fifty six, every day, for two years, and stands where the gate is rather than where the parents are.

You know that person. It might be a neighbor, a colleague, somebody at church, a member of your own family. They saw. They have never said. And what you are managing is not their behavior, which is fine, but the copy of you that exists inside somebody else's head.

You have your transgressions removed to a distance with no meeting point, and you were never going to be able to remove them yourself. The psalm says as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us, and He is the one described doing the removing; that is exactly what stands written, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a live fact at a school gate at eight fifty six in the morning.

As far as the east is from the west

Let me name the thing precisely, because a lot of well meaning advice would miss it entirely.

You are not being punished. Nobody is holding anything over you. Steph is not a problem. What you are carrying is the knowledge that a version of you exists outside your control, and that it is in the possession of somebody you have to stand next to five mornings a week, and that there is nothing you can do about it that would not make it larger.

And I want to be careful about something else, because this site is careful about it: nothing in this article is telling you to go and say something to her. I do not know your situation, or hers, or what a conversation would do. That decision is yours and belongs with people who actually know you, and it is not a condition of anything I am about to say.

Here is what the psalm says, and I want you to notice the direction it picks.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.Psalm 103:12

North and south have a limit. Go far enough north and you reach a pole, and one more step is south. If the psalm had said north and south it would have described a large but measurable distance.

East and west do not do that. Go east, and keep going, and you never arrive at west. There is no meeting point. It is the only pair of directions on earth that can be extended indefinitely without ever converging, and that is the one the psalm chose.

You have a distance with no meeting point between you and it, and you were never given a large gap that could be crossed back. That is what stands written in Psalm 103, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ancient measurement mean something at a school gate on a Tuesday.

And notice who does the moving. So far hath he removed. The verb belongs to God. Not you. Not your explaining, not your two years of arriving at eight fifty six, not any account you might give of that morning. He removed them, in the past tense, and the psalm reports it as a completed action.

You have a removal already carried out, and you were never the one responsible for the carrying. Scripture puts the verb in God's hands and in the past tense, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps that from becoming a job a woman has to do again every morning at a gate.

And here is the thing about that psalm you need for eight fifty six. It says from us. It does not say from other people's memories. Steph will remember what Steph remembers, and no verse in the Bible undoes what is in another person's head. What the psalm settles is the record, and the record is not held by anyone at that gate. It is held by God, and He has moved the contents of it east and west.

You are being read from a record no bystander is holding, and you were never being judged out of somebody else's memory. The written word puts the removal in God's own accounting, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a person from confusing what a neighbor recalls with what heaven has on file.

And the plain thing, said as it is said in every article here. Two years of arriving four minutes late to avoid a woman is its own weight, and it is worth telling somebody about. A counselor, a friend, the room where people say true things out loud, your doctor. That is God's kindness with a face on it, and it is not a lesser road.