“Whoever hears these words of mine and does them will be like a man who built his house on a rock and the storms came and beat on the house yet it held firm.” Hears and does. Practice. It’s so powerful to hear at the end of this famous body of sayings that Jesus said and he ends them with practice. I’m so blown away by that. Really just blown away by Christ these days. I have been chewing on Matthew 4-7 and it’s been wild. There is so much there to digest. I am beginning to awaken to the reality of Christ in my own life. It is healing in ways that I’ve longed for since I was a young child.
It’s wild to begin to experience in a felt sense the love that created me. Like this good, generous God has come and created me in his image and likeness and though I am prone to distort his likeness I have always borne the image. I think this is why deep acts of forgiveness connect with humans on a visceral level. Like we respond emotionally, usually. I think there is something so powerful about breaking the cycle of hell on earth. The reign of terror which says keep bleeding, someone has got to die. React and keep reacting. Keep taking and abusing and blaming. To step outside that and lay down my weapons. To allow for the impulse of violence to be turned into the energy of forgiveness. Planting gardens of resurrection.
There’s this thing I’ve been working with lately. It’s just being aware of myself while I’m developing new rhythms. In that process, being able to allow myself to engage in the process of living into this, with curiosity, while also continuing to commune with love. I need to be formed by love if I’m going to get where I want to go. I know there is a lot of things in the world that are all working to form me. I must allow myself to be drawn deeper into this beauty. It will change me in ways that I cannot yet even understand because those ways are beyond my range of vision.
I’m here breathing in the fragrance of Christ who came and became a working class person in the place and time that was full. A time pregnant with all the healing that the world was fated to receive. Carried into the arms of this beloved God. This Shepard whose rod and staff comfort me and guide me and bring me rest. The humility I am invited into in which I am free. To let go of the striving for image and the control of perceptions of other folks and to just be free to be. To lean into the good work of caring well for the people around me and to build the home that I’ve always wanted to live in. I can build the home I’ve always wanted to live in.
It is just that I’ve always wanted to build a home where love dwells. Where love comes home from a long day and stays. I think I’m just realizing how precious the opportunities to breathe and be are. There is a sense of wonder in the whole process of being human. I get to live for a short while and then I will die. The personality writing this right now with all my contextual understanding of reality. All the music I’ve listened to will pass out of this vessel. All the beauty I’ve absorbed will wash out in my passing. I am in process and then there will be a sounding, a sort of subtle reckoning with the folks who remember me, where they will say things that they are willing to say out loud in front of other people about who I was, and share the grief of my passing together.
The beauty I’m finding is such that this moment becomes so real. It becomes so potent and so fragrant. There is a preciousness to the process and cycles of being a person. The work of the day. The connection with other humans. The exercise of the body. The making of a meal. The listening to music. The watching of a comedy. The welcoming of the process of being human. To learn to build my house on the rock. To learn to build my home where the winds will come and the storms will rage and the house will stand because love dwells there bodily and even with my passing and the passing of everyone I have ever loved that love will continue on in the hearts of the beloved who are also working through time. The fullness of time has come with the person of Jesus and at his advent I sing Hallelujah and groan along with creation until all is made new. I am in the process of building home.
structures of home 