The Derelict House

Our layers of identities are like houses; we move in and out of them. I once shared a derelict house with a group of students. The old row home was so close to the railroad tracks that it shook as the trains rumbled past. Quaint, but bitter cold in the winter.

It was heated only by open coal fires in each room. Sooty coal dust permeated almost everything. I snuggled down to sleep by a warm blaze, but woke up to cold ashes in a room where breath was visible. I wore a coat all winter.

The toilet sat in an unheated room and it faced a feeble door to the outside; only a Styrofoam seat ring provided enough insulation to use the john in the biting air that snuck through the cracks in the door.

But the old place had charm. I painted my little room a cheery sunny yellow and hunkered down in it. It was mine and I loved it. But like the tattered identities I own, the house was not a suitable place to remain. The time came to move out of the old place and let it be torn down. Shortly after I lived there, it was condemned.

That’s the best thing to do with some of those negative self-images we inhabit. Move on. But we don’t have to hate those parts of ourselves. We can forgive ourselves for having participated in actions that Jesus condemned. We need to embrace those parts of our past and know how to own them without self-loathing. We close the doors of those houses behind us, lock them, and remember Jesus in the sunny yellow rooms of forgiveness.