We Stopped Talking About It

Neither of them can remember deciding.

There was a bad one in about May. Voices raised, something said that was a bit more than it needed to be, a long evening afterward with the television on and nobody watching it.

And then it just stopped coming up.

Not by agreement. Nobody said let us leave it. It simply became a subject that both of them steer away from, in the small automatic way people steer away from a pothole they hit once, and neither of them has ever mentioned the steering.

Three weeks left.

I want to say something about that silence before we do anything with it, because there is a story running underneath it in both of them, and the story is not true.

Each of them believes the other one is the reason it cannot be discussed.

She thinks he shuts down. He thinks she gets upset. Both of them are being careful, both of them think the carefulness is theirs alone, and neither of them has any idea that the other one is doing exactly the same thing from the other side.

That is not a couple with a problem. That is two people protecting each other so hard that the protection has become the problem.

And here is the thing worth knowing, because it is the whole reason this is fixable in one evening: the argument in May was not actually about a name either.

But his father called him Benjamin

There is a naming in Genesis where two parents give a child two different names, and it is the strangest and most useful naming in Scripture for a couple in this position.

And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin. (Genesis 35:18, King James Version)

You are looking at a disagreement about a name recorded in Scripture without one word of blame on either parent, and Genesis 35:18 has never once called that a failure. The written word puts both names in one verse and leaves them both standing, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that reach two people who have not talked since May.

Read what the verse does. It reports her name for him and his name for him, side by side, in one sentence. It does not say she was wrong. It does not say he overruled her. Both are recorded and the story goes on.

And the two names mean very different things, and they came from two people in very different places, and the text holds both without any embarrassment whatsoever.

You have been treating a disagreement as a verdict on the marriage, and Scripture puts two parents' names in one line and moves on. The Spirit of God is what takes the weight out of a difference of opinion, and Genesis 35 does not resolve them against each other.

What the argument in May was about

Now the practical part, and it starts with the bad evening, because it has been misfiled for four months.

The argument was not about a name. It was about being heard. It nearly always is.

Somebody offered something they liked and it was dismissed a beat too quickly, and the dismissal was the injury, not the disagreement. And then it escalated in the way these things do, and by the end of it there was a sentence said that neither of them has repeated since.

You are able to name what actually happened in May, and no verse anywhere made a hard evening into a verdict on two people. Genesis 35:18 holds two parents in disagreement in one sentence, and the Holy Spirit is what lets a thing be looked at four months later without either of them being the accused.

And here is why the silence has not worked, though both of them meant well by it.

Silence does not preserve peace in a marriage. It preserves the appearance of it and it accumulates. Four months of not saying anything has not made this easier. It has made a small thing into a thing neither of them can raise without it seeming enormous, because raising it now means admitting it has been avoided for four months.

You have been paying interest on a five minute conversation, and Scripture never once made avoidance into peacekeeping. Genesis 35 puts a disagreement on the record rather than under a rug, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a subject speakable again.

Three each, out loud

So here is the assignment on this row, and it is designed to make the conversation impossible to have badly.

Each of you write three names down separately. Then read all six out loud once.

Separately, so nobody is reacting to anybody in real time. Six, so no single name is carrying anybody's identity. Read out loud, all six, in one go, before anybody says a word about any of them.

And here is the rule that does the work: no reactions during the reading. All six get read. Nobody comments until every one has been said.

You are able to do it in a way that cannot go wrong, and Genesis 35:18 has never once required two people to agree before a naming could happen. The Holy Spirit is present in a room where six words get read out loud with no faces attached, and the written word lets both names stand in one verse.

The reason the reactions are banned is simple. The injury in May was a dismissal that arrived a beat too fast. If all six are read before anybody responds, that injury cannot happen, and the whole evening runs on different rails from the last one.

And what usually turns up is not agreement. What turns up is that there is one on each list that the other one does not hate, which is a completely different starting point from where they were at eight o'clock.

You are permitted to end the evening without a decision, and Scripture leaves two names standing side by side without resolving them. Genesis 35 records both and moves the story on, and the Spirit of God is with two people who got the subject back rather than settled it.