Building House, Sifting Dirt, and Washing Clean

“A house is a home in progress.”

They built a house of sticks and stones, with mortar in-between to hold it together. But it would not stand the test of time. The floods came and washed it away in bits and pieces, and they learned from their mistake. Later, they built a house of bricks stacked one by one, until it looked as firm as clay in the sun, and they thought it would hold fast against the rising of the tide, succeeding where their previous house had failed. Yet, it too came tumbling down, this time when the strong winds came, collapsing into itself. They were perplexed. How would they build a house as impenetrable and as safe as they needed to survive the cold, arduous winter?

 

“It is in the sifting of the dirt that we learn how to grow.”

After more diagrams and village-wide discussions, the elders finally settled on a house to be built on a solid foundation. So, they sifted the dirt with their hands, each one down on his knees, turning over the soil. Then it was blessed by the village priest, the area consecrated. That’s when they knew the new house would stand firm. They rebuilt, but this time with wood and nails. When it was hammered in place, they gazed up at it in wonder, for it had been built by all of them together. And it did stand the test of time for generations to come.

“There is a thin line between washing clean and washing away.”

The floods came again, but this time they merely skirted the house built of wood. They continued through the village, though, gathering steam because of having to go around the consecrated house. In time the rest of the village was submerged, the people drowned, and all memory of the place gone. Except for the one house that had been blessed and built to stand the test of time. But no one was left to remember it, or to see it, as it stood there lonely and alone, washed clean and as solid as time itself. And one day a boy and his father were floating in a raft down what had become a river through the buried town, and they came across the house, standing tall. And they wondered why it was there, as they continued down the river, paddling furiously against the current, and soon they forgot all about it.

Sam