Matters That Matter ®

The words you speak become the house you live in.  Hafiz

The house we built started out on a napkin in the bar at Paradise Lodge in the shadow of Mt. Rainier.  We were on our way back from dropping the last daughter off at college, and I needed a distraction to keep from thinking about our nest that was now empty.  Over a glass of wine my husband and I began to imagine a new nest.  A rustic home that we imagined would become a gathering place for those we loved.  Eight years later, what we imagined on a napkin now sits firmly grounded in  the shadow of Mt. Adams, gathering those we love as often as we can all manage.  What we imagined began as thoughts, the thoughts became the words that found our builder, who ordered the supplies that became our home.  One board at a time, nail by nail, our house was built, upon the foundation of our thoughts, imagination and words.

The homes we build around our souls are no different.  They begin in our imaginations and with our thoughts, becoming the words we speak, and which thought by thought and word by word, build the frameworks within which we live our lives.  Are we captive to our thoughts or do we take our thoughts captive? And are those thoughts building homes that isolate and divide, or gather and connect?  Do our thoughts throw the windows of our houses open to possibility and meaning, or draw the blinds shut, keeping us small and safe?   Life will unfold in ways expected and not.  It will be threaded together with the good, the bad and the ugly.  At times it will take our breaths away, and at others, threaten to take away our last breaths.  Inhabiting our inner homes, we navigate our outer lives. What houses are we drawing on our napkins?  What thoughts are we turning into the words that build the houses within which we live?

We are the builders.  We are always under construction.