There’s a house I visit in my waking and sleeping dreams. It stands tall in frame, a wooden structure stood up on stilts. The house is detached, white, two/three storey structure, visually balanced with sash windows and doors and a porch balcony which wraps around the whole thing. A classic ‘american’ type house!
White wooden steps lead the way up to a porch where you can sit, read and meander the day away, sat outside whilst in, on the sofas or the swing just around its corner. All look out onto a vast garden and space making the outside feel more in, and the inside more out.
This is a place I go to, and always have since my childhood. It’s a place to go when you want company and don’t! It’s a place for when you want to get as noisy as a great bear or be as quiet as a mouse. It’s a place of rest and to do your frantic searching. Best of all it’s a space to weather out the storms that rage all around it! A place of comfort, acceptance and warmth. A ‘come as you are’ place, not a ‘come as you want to be’. Mostly it’s a place of peace.
Sadly an earthquake came.
It tore up this house from the centre of its core. Under the struts of the solid foundations, the earth ripped apart. Canyons of seared ground pressurised the house. The foundations couldn’t hold the weigh anymore and the house fell in, torn and betrayed by the ground that had held it’s form and steady for so long……
But as the dust settled, and the area was surveyed, it was seen that the main destruction, whilst heart-breaking wasn’t the end.
At the back, a tiny section remained. A cupboard really.. Tiny, minute, but still very very solid.
With a little help the rubble was sorted and cleared. And the land made safe once again.
Some of the rubble could be used again, but some has simply just had its time. Some, could be used and stored for firewood… a slightly different purpose to a former roof beam or door frame!
With the right help, it became clear that little of this rubble needed to go to waste. With the help of those in the know, the plans were made, and the structure began its process of being rebuilt.
In the planning came the realisation that this structure didn’t need to be exactly the same. As child grows out of their home, we too change and the environment around us shifts too. Perhaps the earthquake was trying to teach us this and offer a way, a path to change…
So plans were adapted, and a new way forged. Each piece of wood was thoughtfully and methodically placed, until in time a structure began to form. The new house took shape slowly, and was barely recognisable to the one that sat there before. A new vision brought new rooms and views, housed in the exact same ‘space’. Each room gave a whole new perspective on the outside space, the different windows let more light in.
The process was long, painstaking and thorough, but in time and with hope peppered with belief, the House of Faith stood the weather the storms once again! Once again it was home..
