some thoughts behind my SIP


As I get closer to endings, space becomes more and more full for me. There is a certain significance to the angles of this desk’s corners, the tilt of the picture, the colors of the few dark reds. Sometimes I stare at it, imprinting it on my brain because I am sentimental and it is still very much imprinted on my heart. And this sentimental girl can only take so much. So much crumbling and breaking, daily decay of my created order.  The constant slide into chaos, the constant ending of good things. I wash dishes every day and then I eat again. I arrange and center, lighting candles, ‘creating the atmosphere’ I secretly whisper to myself, knowing this joy too childish to share in seriousness. And the people fill the room, the smells fill the room, the candles flicker and beckon, but only to go out, be silenced, be absorbed by the old musty walls of the cold house. It ends and again I wash dishes, throw away spent candles, sweep the floor, and I am alone. The silence of a weary house reflects the weariness of my heart. And it is weary from this decaying of my space, a place has decayed into only a chaotic mess. And this is where I live, a place of mess and of fall, of loneliness and of faithlessness. I wake up every morning and fight myself, the clothes, the physical body, to put clothes on depresses me for they only reflect the mess of my soul. I throw books and dirty clothes on a filthy floor, I toss dirty dishes in the sink. I leave my house and spill coffee over my pants, the car seat, the walls of the office, the cement stairs. And I know that I am a messy person. I will never be put together because my inward reality always reflects in my external space. I am not put together and I say its funny, telling the stories of the car paint scraped off by mailboxes, the coffee splattering across the office walls, the three-day-worn, mismatched socks, the assignments handed in with huge stains from lunch. Chaos runs my life. And my space reflects my soul. And I remember I will never be put together, but there is always a chance of being held together. Of grace entering into chaos. I believe order is overrated. But order is beautiful and meaningful and space doesn’t exist separate from eternal truth. Space doesn’t exist separate from my self. My identity is wound tightly into the space around me. I crave a place. Belonging. A space to be safe. I crave a home. Because home is where my space is full of eternal truth, of belonging, of safety. Home shows me who I am. The space reflects something interior, deep in me, deep in my family. My home is my place, my home is an ordered space of grace, deep heart-rending, centering truth. 

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