I Do Not Know Where The Water Shutoff Is

There was water on the kitchen floor and you opened a cabinet.

Not because you knew anything was in there. Because you had to be doing something, and opening a cabinet is a thing a man does in a house when water is coming out somewhere and he has no idea what to do about it.

You looked at some cleaning bottles and a bucket. Then you closed it.

Then you stood there.

You are forty one. You own that house. And you do not know where the water shutoff is, or which switch in the box is the kitchen, or whether that thing under the sink is a valve or a joint.

And you have never told anybody that.

That is the actual weight here, and it is not the water. The water was mopped up eventually and the man who came round on the Tuesday found it in about ninety seconds and was pleasant about it.

What has stayed is the standing there. The particular feeling of being a grown man in his own kitchen, in front of his own family, opening a cabinet he knew was useless because doing nothing was worse.

And there is a story you tell yourself about that, and it has been running since long before Sunday.

I want to say clearly what I am not going to do with it.

I am not going to talk about who should have taught you.

There is a version of this article that goes there. It would ask about your father, and what he did or did not show you, and it would offer you an explanation that comes with somebody to be quietly sad about.

I am not doing that. I do not know your house or your childhood, and using a person who is not here to explain a man who is here is cheap. There are a hundred ordinary reasons a person reaches forty one without being shown where a shutoff valve is, and none of them are anybody's failure.

What is true is simply this: you were not taught this. That is a fact about information, not a fact about you.

With all thy getting get understanding

There is a line in Proverbs about acquiring wisdom, and the word to notice is get.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. (Proverbs 4:7, King James Version)

Therefore get wisdom.

Get is an active verb and it is aimed at the person reading. Not receive wisdom, not be given wisdom, not wait to be taught. Get it, which puts the acquiring in your hands.

And that means the not having is assumed. You do not tell somebody to go and get a thing they already have. The verse addresses a person who lacks something and tells him plainly to go and get it, and there is no shame anywhere in the sentence about the lacking.

That is worth sitting with, because the shame is the whole problem here.

You have not been stopped from learning where the shutoff is by any difficulty. It is not hard. A man could learn it in four minutes with a flashlight. What has stopped you is that finding out would mean admitting you did not know, and at forty one that admission has grown much larger than the fact it covers.

And then the second half: with all thy getting get understanding.

With all thy getting. Whatever else you are acquiring. The proverb assumes a man is out in the world getting things, and it says while you are getting all of that, get this too.

There is no age limit in it. There is no window that closes. It is written to a person mid life who is out acquiring things, and it says: add this.

You are told to go and get it rather than to have been given it, and the not knowing has never once been treated as a disgrace. Proverbs 4:7 puts the acquiring in a man's own hands and assumes he does not have it yet, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody standing in front of an open cabinet.

Not shown is not incapable

Here is the practical half, and it is a distinction you have been collapsing for years.

You have been treating not knowing as not being able.

Those are entirely different. Not knowing where the shutoff is means nobody ever pointed at it. Not being able would mean you lack the capacity to understand a valve, and you plainly do not, since you understand considerably harder things every day at work.

But at forty one, in your own kitchen, the two feel identical, and the reason is the audience.

At twenty two, not knowing a thing is fine. It is expected. At forty one it has quietly become evidence about the kind of man you are, and that is why you did not ask the man on the Tuesday to show you what he was doing, even though he was right there and would have been happy to.

You had the perfect opportunity and you let it pass, and you did it to protect a reputation nobody in that room was assessing.

So the missing thing is not competence. It is four minutes of information that you have been unable to reach because reaching for it costs you an admission.

And here is what makes this urgent rather than merely awkward. There will be another Sunday. Some other thing will fail at some other hour, and the choice is between a man who does not know and knows he does not, and a man who spent four minutes in a basement once.

The second man is not smarter. He simply looked.

Never having been shown is not the same as being incapable, and four minutes of information has never once been a measure of a man. The written word tells a man to get understanding without one word about why he lacks it, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody who let a plumber leave without asking.

Find one thing tonight

So here is the assignment, and it is one thing and it takes about ten minutes.

Find one thing in your house tonight, the fuse box or the water shutoff, and know where it is.

One. Not both. Not a program of learning about your house.

Pick whichever one you would rather have in an emergency, and go and find it. In the basement, under the sink, in the closet, outside near the street, wherever it is in a house like yours. Take a flashlight. Look at it. Put your hand on it.

And if you cannot find it after ten minutes, look up where it usually is in a house of that age, or ask one person.

That asking is the part I want to address, because it is the whole barrier.

Ask like a man asking for information, not like a man confessing. There is a way to say this that carries no apology in it: I have never had to find the shutoff in this house, where is it. That sentence contains no admission of anything and no invitation to a discussion about you. It is a request for a location.

Nobody will think anything of it. People ask each other where things are constantly, and the person you ask will very likely tell you a story about the time they could not find theirs.

Then, tonight, tell one other person in the house where it is. Your wife, your son. Two reasons: it makes it real, and it means somebody else knows too, which is the actual point of the exercise and not your reputation.

One thing. Tonight. Ten minutes.

You are able to go and look tonight, and asking where a thing is has never once been a confession. Proverbs 4:7 says therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man in a basement with a flashlight.