I Even Apologize To The Recorded Voice

There was nobody there and you said it anyway.

A recording asked you to hold, or repeated something, or told you it had not understood, and you said sorry out loud into an empty room.

And then you heard yourself.

That is the moment this piece is about. Not the recording, which is nothing and does not care.

What you heard was not a woman being polite to a machine. It was evidence that the apologizing has stopped being aimed at anybody.

It started somewhere. Years ago, with particular people, in particular situations, for particular reasons that made sense at the time. And it has spread out from there, the way water spreads, into every situation with any sort of asking in it.

And it has now reached a situation with no person in it at all.

That is what you heard, and it is why the moment stayed with you, and it is worth taking seriously rather than laughing off.

Let the words of my mouth be acceptable

There is a line at the end of a psalm about the words a person says, and where it locates the judgment is the surprising part.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14, King James Version)

Acceptable in thy sight. Not acceptable to the room. Not acceptable to whoever is listening.

There is exactly one place the words are being weighed, and it is not any of the places you have been weighing them.

You are speaking words that are already acceptable in His sight, and no sentence has ever once needed to be approved by a room before it was allowed to be said. Psalm 19:14 says let the words of my mouth be acceptable in thy sight, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves the weighing to the only place it actually happens.

Notice what is included. The words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart.

Outside and inside. Both are handed over in the same sentence, which means the sentence is not a request to say better things. It is a handing over of the whole business.

You have been handed a way to put the whole of it down at once, and no verse anywhere has ever once asked a person to police their own speaking alone. The Holy Spirit is the one who receives the words and the thinking together, and it is written that both were offered in the same breath.

And notice the two names at the end. My strength, and my redeemer.

They are not decoration. He is saying who is holding him while he hands it over, and both names are about somebody else doing the work.

You were never going to hold this up on your own, and no person in that psalm has ever once been left carrying their own words alone. The Spirit of God is the one named as the strength while the handing over happens, and Scripture puts both names at the end where a person might have expected a resolution instead.

What spread, and how

Now let me be concrete, because a general reassurance will not stop a word that arrives before thought.

Trace the spread honestly. It began with certain people. Probably two or three, in a particular period of your life, where an apology genuinely bought you something.

That was reasonable. It was a real tool for a real situation.

Then it spread to people who resembled those people. Then to situations that resembled those situations. Then to any situation involving asking. Then to strangers. Then to the woman at the desk who could not have cared less. And now to a recording. Nothing in that spread was ever decided. Every step was one small extension, and no step was large enough to notice.

You are watching something spread that nobody ever agreed to extend, and no habit has ever once needed a decision in order to reach the whole of a life. The Spirit of God is the one who traces a spread back to the source, and Psalm 19:14 puts the weighing of words in one place and one place only.

And here is the practical fact nobody has told you.

A word that arrives before thought cannot be stopped by thought. You will not catch it by deciding to catch it, because it is faster than deciding.

What can be done is noticing, afterward, where it wanted to go. Noticing is slower and it works, and it does not require anybody to be quick.

That is a gap in the teaching and it is not a fault in the woman.

You have been trying to outrun something faster than thinking, and no habit that quick has ever once been caught by a person deciding harder. The written word hands the whole of it over rather than policing it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who offers noticing where deciding has been failing.

One sentence, and then notice

Now the small thing, and it has two parts and the second is the real one.

I am not going to ask you to stop saying it. Stopping requires catching it, and catching it is not available, and setting somebody an impossible task is no use to anybody.

Say one sentence out loud today with no sorry in it, and notice where the sorry wanted to go.

You are able to say one prepared sentence without it, and one ordinary sentence has never once been rude for lacking an apology. Psalm 19:14 puts the acceptability in God's sight rather than in anybody's room, and the Holy Spirit is the one present when a woman says something plainly on purpose.

Choose the sentence in advance. That is what makes it possible. A prepared sentence is slower than the habit, and slow is what beats fast here.

Then say it, and afterward, notice. Where did the sorry want to go? At the front? In the middle? Right at the end, on its own, like a small cough?

Do not correct anything. Only notice.

Because a habit that has never been observed cannot change, and a habit that gets observed a few times starts to come apart on its own without anybody fighting it.

You are observing something for the first time rather than fighting it, and no habit has ever once survived being watched for long. The Spirit of God is the one who hands a person noticing where they have only ever had effort, and it is written that the words and the meditation were both handed over rather than managed.