Alanna shares her growing awareness of the overlap between the inner and outer world, which has been drawn into focus for her through the act of building a house. It seems that striving for permanence in the world of decay has brought her to embrace the possibilities for infinite growth and rejuvenation in a world known only to the heart. -Editor.
Garth and I are building a house. I keep moving back and forth between the natural reality and effort involved in constructing a dwelling place, and the spiritual or metaphorical implications inherent in this act.
In True Christianity 89, the concept of home is used as a simile for the goal of regeneration -
The Lord's life followed this path because the divine design is for people to prepare themselves to accept God; and as they prepare themselves, God enters them as if he were coming into his own dwelling and his own home."
I have loved this quote for a long time. The idea that my consciousness could be open and ordered enough to make God feel at home is an amazing proposition. As individuals, we inhabit spiritual spaces that are embodied in the thoughts and intentions we identify with and act on. The labor of building a home has provided me with time to witness and reflect on where my attention goes. There have been many times when I've taken notice and thought - 'where am I and how did I get here?' It's humbling to think about what the environment where some of my thoughts are streaming in from must look like in the other world. I can assure you that God would not feel comfortable there. (Although, this is debatable. I imagine God would feel at ease anywhere, just humming with his insatiable love and being- ness, but you get what I mean.)
The concept that salvation could be instantaneous collapses under the reality of how much effort it takes to actually construct a house. It is a huge task. Granted, we are building with natural materials, which may not be expedient, but all building requires effort. As I write this the frame is standing on a concrete foundation with a finished roof and three sided dormers. We are working on the walls of the first story - building them out of cob. Cob is a mixture of clay, sand and straw. There is a lot of handwork involved. The walls are eighteen inches thick - four inches of rigid insulation sandwiched between 7 inches of cob on either side. We mix large batches of cob with our tractor and then fill wheelbarrows by hand. Each load must weigh more than two hundred pounds because I pushed a hundred pounds of chicken feed in the wheelbarrow other week and it felt like nothing. We grab thick, wet globs and hoist them into place. These mounds are massaged into a wall shape and jabbed a number of times with an eight inch tool we named a 'progger'. A progger, as it turns out, is just a section cut from an old wooden mop handle. Ideally the pounding compresses the cob and forces the blades of straw to knit the upper layers together with the layers beneath it. There is a lot of pushing and slapping involved as well, trying to keep the wall in line as it splooges under the weight of itself. Within a day the wall is leather-hard and ready to be trimmed. We use old hand saws and a level, and bash away until we have something that passes for plumb. One can extrapolate that the work of building an inner space where the Lord can actually rest is an even further-reaching project - one that may never be 'finished'.
In Isaiah 66, the Lord says, “Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?" Thankfully the Lord wants to dwell with us and has the power to sustain us in the effort of preparing ourselves to tolerate his presence. As with our house, progress is very slow. Most days all I can do is witness the thoughts and feelings I'm identified with. Many times, even if I attempt to hault my thoughts, acknowledge the shortcomings that have risen up in front of me, and pray to the Lord to move out of that state, I will slip into the habitual monologue again. I accept that this is just where I live today, and that over time the Lord will move me closer to himself as I become willing.
Hence, if one is willing to think wisely, he may know what is the origin of all things on the earth, namely, that it is the Lord; and the reason why they come forth on the earth not ideally but actually, is that all things, both celestial and spiritual, which are from the Lord, are living and essential, or as they are called substantial, and therefore they come forth into actual existence in ultimate nature. (AC 1808)
Our physical house is subject to decay and damage, but the spiritual home that we are building is made of substances that are inviolate. That home is living - the collective sum of of all the love and truth we have put into action - and is therefore real. Now that sounds like something to come home to.
One day we will live in the space we are building. I feel the same hope about the desert in my mind and heart when I read things like this -
For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: 'I am the Lord, and there is no other.Isaiah 45:18