HomeKey

After a 6-day vacation, I found myself at the office door this morning, putting my house key in the lock.

The auto-response of where my body apparently thinks I should be always seems a phenomenon to me. It brought to mind a quote that Anne Smith shared at a Women's Prayer Retreat I was at almost a year ago from Rachel Remmen...

"If you lose the key, throw away the house."

The braveness of this sends a quake through every safety net I ever knitted. Proof of a pack-rat? Evidence that I am more materialistic than I let on? It's deeper than that. The future is. Scary. Especially if there is any hint it will be different than this brea(lity)th.

What houses do I no longer have access to? What dwellings do I need to walk away from? My Key has morphed - it refuses to let me re-enter the houses of Meek Denise, Directionless Wandering, Fat Kid, Teacher's Pet, Never Asked to Dance, Ignored Daddy's Girl. Forget walking away. Those are condemned buildings that, if I don't tear them down, will haunt me even if they Key won't turn.

The truth is, I can still jimmy a window and let myself inside. Everything is dimmer and dustier, but recognizable, and I risk injury in the dark. Even truer: I need those building blocks - there are new structures under construction than can only be built on those reworked stones. Strip the moss and mold off Shame to build Beauty. Beneath the rot and rust of Selfishness is Love. And by shattering Assumption, there are a million cornerstones of Learning.

Here comes the neighborhood...