We Agree On The Name And Not The Spelling

They got the name in about five minutes, on a Tuesday, with no trouble at all.

And they have spent five weeks on two letters.

There is a spelling he grew up with, the ordinary one, the one that will not need explaining. And there is a spelling she wants, which is a real spelling, which is how it goes in the place her family came from, and which will be got wrong for eighty years by everybody who is not looking at it written down.

They have both said, several times, that this is ridiculous.

They have both said it, and neither of them has moved an inch, and there is now a small chill in that house that was not there in September.

Now here is the first thing worth saying, and it is not what most people say.

This is not ridiculous.

Everybody involved keeps calling it that, and the calling it that is part of the problem, because a person cannot argue for something they have already agreed is silly. So both of them are defending a position they have publicly declared to be trivial, which makes both of them feel foolish, which makes both of them dig in harder.

So let us stop calling it small and find out what it actually is.

The little foxes that spoil the vines

There is a line in the Song of Solomon about small things and vineyards, and it is oddly exact here.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes. (Song of Solomon 2:15, King James Version)

You are dealing with something Scripture takes seriously despite its size, and Song of Solomon 2:15 has never once dismissed a small thing for being small. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes that permission land on two people who have been calling this ridiculous for five weeks, and the written word names the little foxes specifically.

Notice the adjective. Little. The verse says it twice, on purpose. It is not warning about wolves.

And the reason it matters is the second half: our vines have tender grapes. It is not that the fox is large. It is that the thing being damaged is at a delicate stage.

That is a house in the last weeks before a first child. It is tender. And a thing that would be nothing in March is doing real damage in October, and both of them can feel that and neither has been able to say why.

You have been damaged by something genuinely small, and Scripture puts the little foxes in a verse of their own rather than laughing at them. Song of Solomon 2 names the size and takes it seriously in the same breath, and the Spirit of God is what lets two people stop apologizing for minding.

What each of them is actually defending

Now the practical part, and it takes about a minute each.

Ask what would be lost. Not which is better. What would be lost.

For him, what is lost with her spelling is ease. Not for himself. For the child. He is imagining a life of small corrections and he is trying to prevent it, and underneath that there is very often a memory of his own about being the one who had to explain something.

You are both protecting somebody, and Song of Solomon 2 has never once treated a small guard as a small love. The written word takes the little foxes seriously because the vine is tender, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets two people hear each other as protectors rather than as opponents.

For her, what is lost with his spelling is a line home. That spelling is how it is written where her grandmother is from, and using the ordinary one would be a small quiet erasure of a thing that has already got quite thin over two generations.

Those are both real. Neither is trivial. And neither of them has ever been said out loud in that house, because both of them have been arguing about letters instead.

You are defending something you have never named, and no verse anywhere asked two people to settle a thing they have not described. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives words to what has only been a position, and Song of Solomon 2:15 names the foxes rather than leaving them unmentioned.

And here is what happens when the two real things are said out loud. They stop being opposed.

A man who hears that a spelling is a line to a grandmother is no longer arguing with a stubborn preference. A woman who hears that a spelling is a father trying to save his daughter four thousand corrections is no longer arguing with pedantry.

Both of them are then looking at the same page with two good reasons on it, which is a completely different room from the one they have been in since September.

You are able to move this in one conversation, and Scripture takes the small thing seriously enough to name it in a whole verse. Song of Solomon 2 catches the foxes rather than ignoring them, and the Spirit of God is what turns a standoff into two people describing something.

Six spellings, out loud

So here is the assignment, adapted for this house, and it is the same shape as the row it belongs to.

Each of you write the name out three times separately, then read all six spellings out loud once.

Three each, in your own handwriting, however you would write it. And then all six read out loud.

That will sound absurd for about four seconds, because a spelling cannot be heard. And that is exactly the point of it.

You are about to find out that the thing you have been fighting over is inaudible, and Song of Solomon 2:15 has never once made a small thing the enemy of a marriage. The written word protects the vine rather than winning an argument, and the Holy Spirit is present in a kitchen where six identical sounds get read out loud.

The name is the same name. It sounds the same in every mouth that will ever say it. Nobody calling her in from a yard will spell anything.

And what remains after that, once the sound is out of the way, is two people with two good reasons about a written form, and that can be settled kindly, and often the answer that turns up is one nobody had thought of.

You are permitted to solve this without either of you losing, and Scripture calls for the foxes to be taken rather than for the vine to be surrendered. The Spirit of God is with two people who stop defending and start describing, and Song of Solomon 2 protects what is tender.