Welcome, neighbor! Week by week, I’m posting excerpts from some new writing I’m calling “Confessions: a spiritual autobiography.” The first post in this series went up last week, so if you haven’t read it yet, go back and start there.
The more I think about it, the more I think this Substack newsletter is exactly the right format and time to share this work. Because this story is for YOU, my neighbors, now, while it’s urgent. I hope you will share your feedback, your experiences, your presence, to help me finish this well. So be sure to leave a comment below.
Enjoy!
~l.d.w.
Confessions: a spiritual autobiography
Chapter 1: The Soul House
“The house of my soul is too small for you [God] to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it. Some things are to be found there which will offend your gaze; I confess this to be so and know it well. But who will clean my house?’” Augustine, Confessions 1.5.6
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? ” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Lord Jesus, my soul was like a house that I had built up over the first twenty years or so of my life.
It was a good house, solid and tall. It was built in a newly planned Indiana subdivision that had transformed a farmer’s cornfield into a black tar maze of cul-de-sacs and deeply carved decorative lakes, a very typical turn-of-the-millenium landscape. Since I was one of the first to build in that particular place and sales seemed slow, the view from my front porch was one that stretched out across the flat fields toward a leafy horizon.
Of course all this had been forest at one time, as I could tell by those tall trees that bordered every field, lined the older roads and formed a lacy green roof overhead. Those trees struck awe in me when we first moved from the dry southern prairies of Oklahoma. Oklahoma, in my mind, was all red clay rivers in a tiny trickle, round old boulders worn by the wind, and yellow grass burnt by the sun. Leaves sparkling in the sunlight like emeralds were a revelation to me, watching their shadows dance across the road like a lace made of light and darkness left me speechless with wonder, even at 12 years old when I never could stop talking.
When I chose a place to build, this subdivision was perfect. It had the comfort of human order laid across the field. It had the even, treeless space of the prairies so I didn’t feel I was trapped in a cage of tree trunks. And yet it had a view of the warm green trees at the edges, like a safe and cozy boundary between here and the great big world.
The house was tall and flat faced, wrapped in gray bricks, cream colored siding, crimson shutters, and a long front porch complete with rocking chairs, as though it were the original well-tended farm house with a few upgrades and additions, as farm houses tend to have over the years.
But for all its self-conscious reference to the old, the house was brand new. I had built it there one Sunday at a time, digging and pouring a firm foundation of heart-filled hymn singing, Bible memory games, gospel preaching, and passionate dedications of faith and re-dedications on the plush red carpet steps of the church altar. I raised one yellow timber wall of theological framework at a time and clothed it with the drywall and paint of further study. I furnished each room with the simple and austere disciplines of devotion, Bible reading, study and prayer.
I had help of course. One never builds a soul alone. My mother was always on hand. Many of the plans were filled with her ideas, experiences, and wisdom. She had always been home for me, so it made sense that the house of my soul looked much like hers. The framing made what order I could out of the heartfelt jumble of sermons and church experiences I had along the road. There was a bit of good old Southern Baptist longing for You, Lord, alternating between tears of longing for heaven and heart-stopping terror at the hellfire and brimstone I thought I really deserved, There was a dogged Independent Baptist grip on the Absolute Truth of Christian Fundamentals and the imperative of a holy life. And then there was the odd, inexpressible connection I had with the Bible that made its stories feel like my own history.
Oh Jesus, I was a conscientious builder and homemaker. I wanted everything just so. I wanted to please my mother, make my father proud, then impress my peers, my pastors and my teachers with my zeal.
I wanted Father God, to be proud of me. I was proud of what I had done. Probably rightfully so. Everybody else seemed proud of me. I was the bright star that they could point to when they wondered if they were doing anything right.
Yet sensitive, uncomfortable and often overwhelmed in this world, what I really hoped I was doing was building right up to heaven, so I could cozy up to Daddy God on His throne and finally seal whatever crack it was inside me that made me feel like none of this was enough.
It didn’t quite work out like I expected.
In the comments: What strikes you from this post? If you thought of your soul as a house, what would it look like? Where is it? Who is there with you? Tell me all about it!
all text and images are original.
all opinions are my own and do not reflect the official positions of any organizations that I work for or am affiliated with.
I’ve never thought of my soul as a house! I’m wondering about it now: do I imagine a cozy cabin? Or a clearing in a stand of trees maybe, with room to breathe and welcome rain? I think the metaphors could multiply!
I love this Laura! I am so glad to have found your writing! I recently wrote a piece on my wall with Xhrist as a house. And this piece inspires me to keep fleshing that out.