The Arithmetic I Only Do In My Head

Bryn does the sum in the shower, mostly. Sometimes in the car. Once, memorably, in a meeting.

It goes like this. There was the thing in March, which was a number he remembers. Then the tires, which he remembers roughly. Then something in June that he thinks was smaller. Then the one in August, which was the bad one.

And he adds those up, in his head, without a pen, at speed, while doing something else.

And he gets a total, and the total is always slightly different, and every single time it is different he does the whole thing again.

He estimates he has done it a hundred times since the spring. That is a low estimate.

Now here is what makes this worth writing about, and it is not that Bryn is bad with numbers. He is fine with numbers. He does considerably harder arithmetic at work with a spreadsheet open and nobody has ever complained.

It is that this particular sum is being asked to do a job that arithmetic cannot do.

Because he is not really adding up repairs. He is trying to answer a question that has no numerical form, and the question is: am I being a fool about this car?

And you cannot get that out of a column of figures. You can get a total out of a column of figures. The other thing has to be decided by a man, on purpose, after looking at the total.

So the loop never closes. He runs it, gets a number, feels the same, and runs it again, and the running has become a thing he does rather than a thing that produces anything.

His wife said in August, "What have we actually spent on it?"

And Bryn said, "Roughly? About..." and then gave a figure.

And she said, "Is that right?"

And he said, "Roughly."

And it was not right. It was about a third under, and he found that out in the shower two days later, and did not go back and correct it.

A number in the head is not an accounting

Let me put down what I am not doing, so nothing has to brace.

I am not going to tell you whether to keep that car. I have not seen it, I do not know what it costs, and a stranger with no figures should not be taking a side.

And I am not going to tell you what the total ought to be, or that it will be lower than you fear, because it might not be and I would be inventing a comfort.

What I want to look at is why the sum keeps running.

You have been carrying a running total that God never asked you to hold in your head, and Scripture says to cast the care over rather than to keep computing it. 1 Peter 5 says casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you, which gives the carrying away to somebody who is not tired, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a handed over sum stop running at four in the morning.

Here is the verse, and it is a farming instruction with a very practical edge on it.

Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.Proverbs 27:23

Be thou diligent to know.

Not: be diligent to worry about. Not: keep an eye on. Not: have a general sense of.

Know. And diligent, which is a word about deliberate sustained effort applied on purpose, in the way a person applies it to a task rather than the way a thought arrives in a shower.

And then: look well to thy herds, which in the Hebrew carries the sense of setting your heart on something, of putting your attention there properly rather than glancingly.

That is the description of a man with a book and a pen, walking through his own field, counting.

It is not a description of a man doing sums at speed in his head while shaving.

You are not bad with numbers, and Scripture asks for a diligent knowing rather than a constant estimating. It is written be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks and look well to thy herds, which asks for deliberate attention rather than recurring thought, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a practical instruction about a household in an ordinary week.

You have been running an estimate a hundred times where the passage asks for one accounting. Proverbs 27 puts the diligence in the knowing rather than in the frequency, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that difference something a man can actually feel the relief of.

What the loop is actually for

Here is the part I most want to hand you, because it explains a hundred repetitions.

A sum done in the head cannot be finished.

There is nowhere to put it. There is no object at the end of it. So it cannot be referred back to, and it cannot be shown to anybody, and it cannot be checked, which means the next time the question arrives the whole thing has to be done again from the start.

And it is done under conditions that guarantee an error, because the shower is not a place where a man has receipts.

That is why the figure he gave his wife was a third under. Not carelessness. A number produced at speed from memory in a conversation is always going to be a bit optimistic, because a person remembers the amounts they have made peace with more clearly than the ones they have not.

And here is what the loop is actually doing, underneath.

It is a way of holding a difficult question without answering it. As long as the sum is unfinished, the decision is not due. And a man who runs the sum every few days feels like a man who is on top of it, and never has to be a man who has decided anything.

You have been keeping a question open rather than avoiding it, and no verse anywhere treats an unfinished accounting as diligence. Proverbs 27 asks for the state of the flocks to be known rather than continually reassessed, and the Spirit of God is what makes one finished total a rest rather than a verdict.

And I will say the hard half plainly, the way a man deserves.

Some of what is on that list is going to be safety work, and some of it is going to be the sort of thing a garage notes and does not press. Those are different categories and the arithmetic does not distinguish them.

A total is worth having, and it is not the only thing worth having. One call to the shop asking which of the work so far was necessary and what is likely next would put more into that decision than another hundred showers.

You were never meant to hold the whole of this in your head, and Scripture puts the knowing in a form that can be written and looked at. Proverbs 27 addresses a man with flocks he can walk out and count rather than a man carrying a running total, and His Spirit is what makes a piece of paper the ordinary shape of obedience here.