The Man Who Blocks The Bins

Two years and four months, and she can tell you the make of his car without looking.

The arrangement is simple and it has never been in dispute. There is a bin store at the end, there is a marked bay in front of it, and the bay is kept clear because the lorry comes on Wednesday and needs to swing.

He parks in it. Not always. That is the genius of it. He parks in it often enough that everybody has to think about it and rarely enough that nobody can quite call it a policy.

The first year she was polite. She left a note that took her forty minutes to write and was, she still believes, extremely reasonable. He did not respond and the note appeared, folded, on her own windscreen the following week, which she has never fully recovered from.

Now it is two years and four months and here is where she actually is.

She has had, by her own honest estimate, eleven versions of a conversation with him that has never happened. In the kitchen. In the shower. Driving. Three of them at three in the morning, and one of those was so good it woke her up properly and she lay there enjoying it.

She has noticed her face change when she sees the car. There is a specific tightening across her jaw and she knows exactly when it started.

And last Sunday she was in a service, singing, genuinely singing, and the car came into her head, and she had another eight seconds of the conversation right there in the third row.

That is what has finally frightened her. Not the parking. The amount of her that he is living in.

As much as lieth in you, and no further

Sit down, because there is a verse about this and the mercy in it is in the small print, which almost nobody reads.

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.Romans 12:18

Now read the two conditions Paul puts in before he gets to the instruction, because he puts them in on purpose and he puts them in first.

If it be possible. As much as lieth in you.

The apostle who wrote the most demanding letters in the New Testament sets a limit on this one before he asks for anything. He knows perfectly well that peace takes two, that some men will not have it, and that a person can do everything right and still be standing in front of a man who parks where he likes.

Hear this in your own kitchen. You are not failing at this, and the written word is what settles it, not my sympathy. Scripture bounds your part of the peace before it asks for it, and the Holy Spirit has never once held you responsible for a thing that requires another man's cooperation.

Now let me name what is actually happening, because it is not about a bay.

He has moved in. That is what an unfinished conflict does: it takes up residence and it charges no rent, and it uses the best rooms, which is why he was in the third row on Sunday and a good night's sleep in March.

The parking costs you four minutes a fortnight. He is costing you considerably more than that, and the difference is not being caused by him.

Hear this plainly. You are not a bitter woman, and Scripture is what says so. What is written puts the limit on your side of the peace and hands the rest to God, and the Spirit of God is not standing over you with a face like your own face when you see that car.

But something does have to change, and it is not him, and it is not the eleven conversations, because the eleventh one did not help any more than the first.

Here is the change, and it is very small and it will feel completely inadequate for about a week.

You are going to bless him by name.

Not pray about the situation. Not ask God to sort the parking out, which is a request dressed as a prayer. Bless the man, by his name, out loud, with nothing attached to it and nothing asked for.

The written word puts blessing in the mouth of the one who is being provoked, and the Spirit of God is the one who makes it possible, and it is not a technique for changing his behavior. It is the eviction of a man from rooms in your life he was never given.

You cannot rehearse a conversation with somebody you have just blessed. It does not work. Try it on Tuesday and you will find the machinery jams.

And notice the guardrail on this, because it matters and I want it said plainly. Nothing written in Scripture asks you to be quiet about the bay, or to pretend it is fine, or to make yourself small, and the Holy Spirit is not asking it either. You may still speak to him. You may still involve whoever handles the parking. The bay is a real matter and it does not stop being real because you have blessed him.

What ends is not the issue. What ends is the tenancy.