My Mother's Mirror In The Hall

There was a mirror in the hall of the house I grew up in, and everybody in the family used it the same way.

Coat on, keys up, one look. Then a small adjustment, and then a remark.

The remark was the point. Nobody left that house without one. My mother would say something about her hair, and my aunt would say something about her chin, and my grandmother, who was the kindest woman in that county, would look at herself for one second and say, well, that will have to do.

Not one of those women was unhappy. Not one of them thought she was making a statement. It was a house sound, like the screen door, and it went on for fifty years.

And you have got one of those in your house too. Maybe not the mirror. But the remark came down to you, word for word or near enough, and you say it now in an empty hall to nobody at all.

Here is what I want to sit with, because it is a good deal more hopeful than it sounds.

Two things came down that hallway. One is the face. The other is the commentary.

They arrived together, in the same delivery, from women you love, and because they arrived together you have always treated them as one item. But they are not one item. They came from different places, and only one of them is actually yours.

What actually came down the line

Start with the face, because the face is the easy half.

Your mother's cheekbone, your grandmother's hairline, the family nose that has been arriving on new babies for a hundred and forty years. That is inheritance in the plain sense. It came through the body, it was not chosen by anybody, and it will go on down the line after you whether you approve of it or not.

Now the other half. The remark at the hall mirror is not inheritance in that sense at all. It came through the ear. You learned it the way you learned that particular way of saying a word, by hearing it four thousand times before the age of nine.

That distinction matters more than anything else in this piece, because a thing that came through the ear can be set down, and a thing that came through the body cannot.

You are carrying two inheritances and only one of them came through the blood, and the remark at that mirror has never once been part of what you were actually given. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates what a woman received from what she only overheard, and 2 Timothy 1 shows a man doing exactly that sorting out loud over somebody he loved.

And I want to be careful here, because there is a version of this teaching that turns into blaming the women in that hallway, and that version is worthless.

Your mother was not doing anything to you. She was saying, out loud, in her own hall, a thing that had been said in her mother's hall, and she almost certainly never noticed she was doing it. Nobody set out to hand you that. It was in the air of the house, along with the good things, and most of what was in the air of that house was good.

You are able to keep every good thing that came from those women, and putting the remark down has never once required thinking less of one of them. Scripture in 2 Timothy 1 names the faith that came down a line without blaming anybody in it, and the Spirit of God is the one who lets a woman honor her mother and set down one sentence at the same time.

Which dwelt first in thy grandmother

Paul does this exact sorting in a letter to a young man, and I have loved this verse for forty years.

When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. (2 Timothy 1:5, King James Version)

Read what he is actually doing there. He is tracing something backward through two women and naming it.

He does not say Timothy was raised well and leave it there. He picks out one specific thing, the unfeigned faith, and he follows it home. Lois had it. Eunice had it. It came to you, and I am persuaded it is in you as well.

That is a man looking at everything that came down a line and choosing what to name.

He could have named other things. Every family has other things. He named the one worth keeping, and he said it out loud to the person who had received it, so that they would know which part of the delivery was the treasure.

You are permitted to do the same sorting Paul did, and there has never once been a rule that says a woman must keep everything her house handed her. It is written in 2 Timothy 1 that faith came down through two named women and was kept, and the Holy Spirit is the one who shows a daughter which part of the inheritance is the real thing.

Now do it with the hall mirror.

What came down to you from those women, honestly? A way of feeding people. A way of showing up and giving care when somebody is in trouble. A particular laugh. Hands that know how to do things. Very probably a faith that somebody carried through a hard decade so it would still be there when you needed it.

And one remark at a mirror.

You are looking at an inheritance that is mostly treasure, and one sentence in a hallway has never once been the main thing that came down to you. The Spirit of God is what turns a woman's eye from the one bad line to the whole estate, and the written word in 2 Timothy 1 records what was kept rather than what was dropped.

Keeping the face and handing back the sentence

So here is the practical part, and it is small on purpose.

This week, stand at one mirror and say one kind and true thing about your mother's face in yours.

Not about your face. About hers, in yours. That is a different sentence and it goes somewhere different.

My mother had this mouth and I would know it anywhere. These are my grandmother's eyebrows and she was formidable. That is the family nose and my father had it and I loved my father.

You are able to say a true sentence about a face you love, and it has never once been sentimental to name what came down a line. 2 Timothy 1 traces a good thing back through two women by name, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a spoken sentence in a hallway into care.

Say it out loud, in the hall, at the exact spot where the other remark has always been said. That is not sentiment. It is care, put deliberately in the place where a habit has stood alone for thirty years.

And then leave. Do not stay to inspect anything, do not follow it with the usual line to balance it out, and do not decide whether you meant it. Coat on, keys up, one true thing, out the door.

You are able to put one true sentence where the old one always went, and there has never once been room in that hallway for both of them at once. The written word in 2 Timothy 1 names the good thing and lets the rest go unmentioned, and the Holy Spirit is what makes a small spoken thing into an act of care.