We pushed through on Saturday and moved ourselves back upstairs so that I am now lying here, no longer looking at the brick walk of the church, but at a small corner of the wall, some strange pipe sticking it of it, and the sun lightening the hillside with a pale thought of pink and buds, perhaps. Though perhaps not. Maybe it is a trick of the light. Matt is reading proverbs and saying the ones out loud that he thinks apply to me. He, blast it all, acquired all the available points yesterday by cleaning the kitchen after I fell asleep sideways on my bed with my shoes on and my jewelry and everything. Woke up at 9pm to a baby patting my face and asking if she could touch my necklace. I hate it when Matt gets ahead on points. Prefer infinitely to have the debt be all on his side rather than mine. Perhaps that's why it's so hard for me to be a Christian.
Today I will face down the school room which, while we were rearranging everything, descended into Sheol–crayons, books, paper, dolls, the play fruit pie liberally mixed with mud and leaves tracked in from the outside. Every time I went in there last week I would find a child in a coat huddled in the doorway, feet splayed on the sidewalk, trying to pretend it was warm enough to be outside. “Close the door!” I would howl, and carry on shoving things around and looking for new places for things.
Just so many Things. Even though we throw and throw and throw and throw, still, we are stuffed to the brim with things, things that need a place to live and be, things we use, things that are basicslly pretty, when they are intact. My basket of broken glass is brimming over, having had to add my pink wedding pancake plate on Friday. Soon I really will be equipped to take a class in mosaics. A nice mosaic class where I can make a new thing out of all my old things.
When I think of heaven I imagine a big empty space, a hall or something, with a single chair and a shaft of sunlight, and me sitting, perfectly quiet, in the chair, doing nothing at all. But in reality, whenever I have the chance to organize a space, the last thing I end up doing is leaving it with nothing in it. Every room of my house is so so so far away from being an empty uncluttered place with a single chair and a shaft of sunlight. I think in reality when I arrive in such a room in heaven, I will end up going around trying to collect a lot of stuff to clutter it up. Assuming that there are a lot of things in heaven, which I don't assume. But then, I suppose, the new earth will be possessed of Stuff, of Things. In the New Earth I intend to stand for eternity in my kitchen in Mali, looking out of the window at the sky, forever and ever. Amen.
In the meantime I guess I will just continue to shuffle things around today, cleaning and chucking and thinking of the life to come. And then tomorrow we will get back to school and really face down all the Holy Week work that sits, mocking and jeering at me.
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