I Took It Apart Again

There have been three of them.

The first one was up for about a month before you took it down. The second one lasted until the spring. The third one is up now, and you have been thinking about the third one for two weeks now in a way that is starting to feel familiar.

And every single time, the reason was good. That is what makes this so difficult to interrupt. You were not being fussy. You could see something that was genuinely not right and you had learned something since, and redoing it was going to make it better, and it did make it better.

What nobody has ever put beside that is the cost.

Eleven months. One object. Three builds, two demolitions, and a room that has been in some state of disassembly since last autumn.

The improvement is real and it is small and it has been bought with a year, and nobody has ever laid those two things next to each other on the same page.

You are a woman who has built the same thing three times, and undoing good work to improve it has never once been the same as caring about it properly.

Be not righteous over much

There is a line in Ecclesiastes that is uncomfortable to read and is worth reading carefully, because it is a warning about a cost and not a rebuke.

Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? (Ecclesiastes 7:16, King James Version)

Be not righteous over much.

That is a strange sentence to find in scripture, and it is not saying that righteousness is bad. It is describing a particular failure mode, which is going past the point where more is better, and it is unusual in that it names excess in a good thing as a real danger.

And the question it ends with is a practical one. Why shouldest thou destroy thyself. It is asking about a cost, and the cost is being paid by the person doing it rather than by anybody else.

You have a warning about a good thing going past its point, and pursuing better has never once been safe simply because better is good. Ecclesiastes 7:16 names excess in a right direction as a real danger, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a caution rather than an accusation.

And notice the mildness of the instruction. Be not. Not repent. Not stop being righteous. Be not righteous over much, which is a correction of degree and not of direction.

The direction has been right the entire time. Only the degree has gone past where it serves.

You were never going in the wrong direction, and a correction about degree has never once been a correction about what you wanted. The Spirit of God is the one who adjusts a degree without condemning a direction, and the written word says over much rather than saying stop.

The third version is the first one that stays

So here is the practical claim, and it is arithmetic rather than encouragement.

Each version was better than the one before it. That is true, and it will go on being true, because you keep learning and the learning keeps producing a better idea.

Which means there is no version that will survive this. A fourth would be better than the third. A fifth would be better than the fourth. The improvement never runs out, and a process that never runs out will consume an unlimited number of years.

You have a sequence with no ending built into it, and an improvement that keeps being available has never once been a reason a thing should be rebuilt again. Ecclesiastes 7:16 warns about going past the point, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies an ending that the process cannot supply for itself.

And here is the thing underneath it, which needs saying gently.

Taking it down is safe. While the thing is in pieces, it cannot be judged, by you or by anybody. A finished object sits there and is what it is. An object mid rebuild is always about to be better.

That is a real comfort and it is not a small one, and it is why the demolition keeps happening on a Sunday night.

You have been buying comfort with a year, and a thing perpetually about to be better has never once been able to be enjoyed. The Spirit of God is the one present when a woman lets something be what it is, and Ecclesiastes 7:16 asks the question about the cost to the person paying it.

And one more, and it is the whole of the mercy in this row. Nothing here says the third version is good enough.

You were never asked to agree that it is right, and leaving a thing standing has never once required anybody to be satisfied with it. Ecclesiastes 7:16 corrects a degree and not a desire, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes leaving it possible while the wanting is still there.

Leave it a week, and write the date

Here is the assignment and it is the smallest possible version of stopping.

Leave the current version exactly as it is for one week, and write the date it is being left on.

One week. Not forever. Not permanently. Seven days, which is short enough that nothing is being given up and long enough that the impulse has to survive without being acted on.

You have seven days available tonight that decide nothing permanently, and leaving something standing for a week has never once been the same as accepting it forever. Ecclesiastes 7:16 corrects a degree rather than closing a door, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room while nothing at all gets taken down.

And write the date. On a piece of paper, beside it or in a drawer. Left standing from the fourteenth.

You have a pattern that has run three times without once being recorded, and a Sunday night impulse has never once been visible to the person having it. A date turns it into an event with a length, and events with lengths can be looked at. Ecclesiastes 7:16 asks about the cost to the one who is paying it, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes a repetition visible.

Then, for seven days, do not take anything off it. The wanting to will come, probably on the Sunday, and the whole assignment is that it comes and nothing happens.

At the end of the week you may do whatever you like. That is genuinely true and it is what makes the week possible.