18Sep At granny’s
These are centers of serenity where you find the passion to remake the world in spite of overwhelming odds. To retreat into an alcove, a niche, a chamber, or a closet for the purpose of facing fears and foibles is essential. We lay our issues before the Almighty and leave believing in a better outcome. Aren’t we changed in positive ways? Every closet may not hold the ambiance of the bay window at which Debby Boone prays and studies the Word of God. But even the hard floor of a cellar, when we press close to his heart, is a place for divine appointment. The desire to be at times cloistered, concealed, or clandestine is a part of human nature. And like a girl or boy building a hideaway, we each need to find a personal way to sequester ourselves for a time away from the skeptical world.
Charles Dickens’s novels are hill of idyllic getaways. And who could forget the attic in which the March girls practiced their own original plays in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? The alcove where I hide most often is the shower. It’s in the rush of hot water that I find my soul after a siege of stress or insufficient sleep or the overstimulation of a technical world. Liberal servings of quiet and privacy are offered by the fiberglass walls of the cubicle where I wash the weight of the world away. I find tranquility and the story my soul is aching to tell me. Mind and emotion reunite in a body that welcomes them like guests at high tea. Take up the search and shape yourself an alcove. You may find your place on a rustic garden bench or in a dormer window under the eaves.
Everybody needs one small place of enchantment.
Houses, or in particular our homes, are the scene of experience where human and divine fellowship intersect. The stages in our lives are marked out by where we have lived, by the details of what those places looked like, smelled like, and felt like as we moved from room to room, coming and going with the cares and joys of the world. The places we have lived mark our soul, and as a return on that investment, by living soulfully we transform houses into homes. Sans remodeling, decorating, and new furniture, a house becomes home as we explore its nooks and crannies.
