I Say Sorry To It Out Loud

You say sorry to it.

Out loud, most times. Sorry, I know, I left you too long. Or: sorry, that was too much again.

And you have caught yourself doing it and thought it was funny, and then caught yourself again on a worse day and it did not feel funny at all.

Because there is somebody being held to account in that kitchen, and there is nobody else in the room.

So the first thing is to look at the arrangement rather than at the plant.

You have constituted a court in your own kitchen, with one defendant, one prosecutor, and no possibility of acquittal, because the only party who could acquit you is the one bringing the charge.

The Spirit itself maketh intercession

Paul writes something in Romans about what happens when a person cannot get the words right, and it is more radical than it usually sounds.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:26, King James Version)

The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us.

You are represented by somebody who takes over the speaking when the words are wrong, and no fumbled sentence of yours has ever once had to carry the case. Romans 8:26 says the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a man apologizing to a windowsill.

Look at the problem it names first. We know not what we should pray for as we ought.

That is not a rebuke. It is a diagnosis, and it is stated as an ordinary condition rather than as a failing, and the response is not that we should learn to pray better.

The response is that Somebody else does the speaking. The intercession is made for us, in groanings that cannot be put into words at all, which means the whole business of getting the words right has been taken out of our hands.

You were never the one carrying the burden of saying it correctly, and words that cannot be uttered have never once needed you to supply them. The Spirit of God is what makes that a lived relief, and Romans 8 is where the intercession is written down.

An apology needs a recipient

Now the practical half, and it is about the shape of the act.

An apology is a transaction. It requires somebody who was wronged, somebody who did the wronging, and a response from the first to the second.

Say it to a plant and two of those three are missing. There is no recipient, there is no response, and so the apology has nowhere to land and therefore cannot be completed.

That is why it repeats. Not because you are excessively sorry, but because the act is structurally unfinishable, and an unfinished act runs again.

You are performing a transaction with no counterparty, and an apology that cannot be received has never once been able to release the man who said it. What is written in Romans 8:26 hands the speaking to Somebody who can actually hear, and the Holy Spirit is the one who redirects a sentence that had nowhere to go.

And there is a second thing, which is the reason this is in the over care row rather than anywhere else.

A man who is apologizing to a plant is a man who is keeping a running account of his failures with it. And a running account produces compensating behavior, which on a windowsill means more water, more checking, more adjustment.

The sorry and the overwatering are the same activity. One is the verbal form and one is the physical form, and they feed each other.

You are running one activity in two forms, and the water and the apology have never once been separate things. The Spirit of God is the one who names that clearly, and Romans 8 is the ground under the handing over.

Say nothing at all

So here is the instruction and it is a subtraction and it will feel odd.

Water it today and say nothing. Not one word, out loud or inside.

No sorry. No there you go. No commentary at all. Pour the water, put the can down, walk away in silence.

And here is why silence rather than better words. Because replacing the apology with something kinder keeps the same structure in place: there is still a party speaking to a pot about his own conduct. Silence closes the court rather than improving the proceedings.

If something comes up while you are pouring, and it will, let it go past unsaid. That is the whole exercise.

You are able to close a court by saying nothing at all, and one silent watering has never once been a colder act than a spoken one. Romans 8:26 puts the speaking in better hands than yours, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man pouring water and keeping his mouth shut.