I Am Not Artsy And I Never Have Been

You say it the way somebody says their blood type.

That is what I want to start with, because the tone is the whole thing. It does not come out defensively. It is not fishing. There is no wish in it that somebody would disagree.

Oh, I am not artsy.

Flat. Cheerful, even. A piece of information about yourself, offered so the other person knows where they stand, the same way you would tell them you cannot eat shellfish.

And people accept it immediately, because it is said with such certainty that there is nothing to push back on.

Now here is the question, and I would like you to actually sit with it for a second rather than answer it fast.

Where did you get it?

Because a blood type comes from a test. There was a moment, there was a result, it is written somewhere. And this sentence, which you have been saying with the same confidence for about thirty years, does not have a test behind it.

I suspect what is behind it is something like this. There was a sister, or a friend at school, who plainly was. And beside her you plainly were not, and somebody said so once, warmly, and it turned out to be a very useful thing to be able to say about yourself.

Useful because it settles a question before it gets asked. Nobody hands you the pen. Nobody expects anything. It closes a door in advance and the closing is done politely.

Gifts differing

Paul writes a line about gifts that has one word in it doing all the work, and most people read straight past it.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; (Romans 12:6, King James Version)

Gifts differing.

Not gifts and no gifts. Not the gifted and the rest. Differing, which assumes everybody in the sentence has one and describes only how they are unlike each other.

There is no category in that verse for the person who came out without.

You are in a sentence about gifts differing rather than outside one, and Romans 12:6 has no clause anywhere for a person with none. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a line written to a mixed church and lays it down on a woman who has an answer ready for every table.

And notice what the differing is according to. The grace that is given to us. Given. It arrives from outside, which means it was never a matter of what a person turned out to be.

You have something that was given rather than something you were born holding, and it is already settled in the written word that the source is grace and not type. His Spirit is the one who says that over a woman who has been describing herself with the certainty of a blood test.

The sentence does a job

Now let me stay with what the sentence actually does for you, because it is doing something and it is worth being honest about it.

It gets you out of the room.

When it is said, nobody offers the materials. Nobody suggests a go. Nobody watches a woman try something in front of them and be bad at it, which, I would guess, is a specific memory rather than a general fear.

And that is a real protection. I am not going to be glib about it. Being bad at something in front of other people is genuinely unpleasant, and the sentence has spared you that a hundred times.

You are inside a sentence about gifts differing, and Romans 12:6 leaves no category at all for a person who came out without one. The Spirit of God is the one who takes a lifelong exemption off somebody who was never issued it.

The cost is that it has also spared you everything else.

And this: what you would make is not a measure of you, and it never has been. Nobody at that table is holding a scorecard, and the two who might have been are not in the room any more.

You are not a person without, and heaven has never once issued anybody an exemption from having hands. Romans 12:6 assumes gifts across the whole room, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a category off a woman who has been carrying it since school.

And I am not asking you to announce a change. Do not tell anybody you have decided you are artsy after all. That would be awful and you would hate it.

You have permission to stop saying it without saying anything else, and this is yours: the differing in that verse never left anybody out. It is written in Romans 12:6 that the gifts differ according to the grace given, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that cover a woman who has an answer ready.

Twenty minutes, and do not say the sentence

So here is the ask, and it has two halves.

Tonight, make one thing for twenty minutes with whatever is already in the house.

And do not say the sentence. Not out loud, and not silently at the table. It will arrive, probably around minute two, in that same flat cheerful tone. Notice it and carry on.

You have something that was given rather than something you were born holding, and it is already settled in Romans 12:6 that the source is grace. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a table quiet of one particular sentence for twenty minutes.

That is the whole exercise. The making is almost secondary. Twenty minutes without offering yourself that piece of information is what has not happened in thirty years.

It will come out badly, and here is where the sentence will try hardest, because being bad at it is exactly the evidence the sentence has been waiting for. It is not evidence. It is the expected result of a first attempt.

Leave it as it comes out. Do not fix it and do not put it in the bin.

You are covered while it comes out badly and the sentence is standing right there, and Romans 12:6 is the ground under that. The written word assumes a gift in everybody it is addressed to, and the Spirit of God is present at a table where somebody is not reaching for their usual line.