“Have you rebuilt your house yet?”
The question always makes me sigh. No. We haven’t even broken ground. I felt great relief last Fall when we finally filled the hole in the ground where the last house been. The one before the fire.
I remember standing in the kitchen of the Milkhouse, on the other side of the driveway of our still smoldering farmhouse, asking our insurance agent how long it would take to rebuild our house. “Maybe eight months,” she said. “But for some people it takes two years.”
Oh, that won’t be us, I thought to myself. We will have a house long before two years. But here we are, two-in-a-half years out from the house fire and still no house.
“Why is it taking so long?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? It’s the question that comes after I answer the first question, “No, we haven’t built the new house yet.” And it’s the question I often ask myself. “Why is this taking so long?”
I’ve learned there there are different kinds of fires. There are fires that burn the house down. And there are fires that burn your life down. Sometimes they are the same fire. Sometimes not.
When my house burned to the ground, it took my life with it. Not the life that lived inside my body. But the life that had lived inside the house. And it took all of it. Not just my clothes, books and furniture. It took my marriage as I had been living in it. It took the community that had been created there. It took the non-profit as it had been functioning in the house before the fire. It took my relationship with my daughter. It took my understanding of my work in the world.
As I write this list I’m aware it can read like a tragedy. So much loss. But that is not how I experienced it.
After the fire a verse from a favorite hymn kept singing to my soul,
“When through fiery trials
your pathway shall lie,
my grace all sufficient
shall be your supply,
the flames shall not hurt you
my only design,
your dross to consume,
your gold to refine.”
“my only design….
your dross to consume
your gold to refine”
I experienced my house fire not has a tragedy but as a cleansing. Like the way a forest fire clears the brush that accumulates on the forest floor, allowing light to penetrate previously shadowed spaces, creating space for a more diverse and healthy system to grow.
It’s taken more than two years to rebuild my house, because the only house you rebuild in eight months is the same house you had before. To build something entirely different takes more time than I could have imagined. In part, because imagining takes time. First, it took time to realize I was not rebuilding the old house. Five designs in fact. Each one smaller in size, and larger in departure from the way the old house functioned.
Not a community house. A house just for two. Not a house for entertaining. An intimate house. Not a traditional house. A house with few walls, allowing as much nature in as possible.
It takes time to release old ideas, and ways of being in the world. It takes time to discover and discern
the new life after the old life burns to the ground.
This is not just true for house fires. It’s true when a marriage burns to the ground. Or a career. Or a nation. Or our health. Or decades of having our identity wrapped up in what we do: mother, problem solver, bread winner, hero, runner, son, caregiver.
Suddenly something comes along and burns our life to the ground. Cancer. A career ending injury. An affair. A bankruptcy. An election. An accident. A death.
And there is no going back. Yes, it’s a loss. Often a tragic loss. And, it can also be a cleansing fire,
that allows light to find the shadowy spaces bringing new life that would never have otherwise emerged.
In the wake of my cleansing fire some of what I’ve discovered includes knowing …
That I’m a writer.
That I am most alive outside, immersed in nature.
That I love what my non-profit does in the world, but it will do it better with a leader equipped with different gifts.
That my daughter needed to live a life way outside the orbit of mine in order to discover who she really is.
In the wake of my cleansing fire I’ve created a new rhythm that includes more silence, solitude and meditation. I’ve deepened my spiritual work with individuals and communities that needed more of my time and attention.
This month we celebrate the Summer Solstice. The longest day of year. The day when a ball of fire hangs in our sky longer than any other day. Some years this longest day shines like a beacon, leading me home. This year though, it has me thinking …
What’s scorching? What’s burning to the ground?
What have I been holding onto because it’s what’s always been, but maybe no longer serves me, or my family, or my community, or my nation? Might a cleansing fire be burning away the dross? Might gold emerge from the ashes?
These are my questions as we approach the heat of Summer. Shaped by my own cleansing fire, these questions empower me, rather than scare me. Strangely, they open me to hope, and creative possibility.
Maybe the burning sun, on the longest day, might be leading me home after all