Through Stained Glass: Advent Word a Day 19–House

Nature is a haunted house—but Art—is a house that tries to be haunted. ~Emily Dickinson

House

This is my study at my house. That is Tecumseh in his usual spot whenever I spend a substantial amount of time in this room. Of which I’ll be doing tonight, tomorrow, and through the weekend, as I finish my final paper for the fall semester. 

Since my attention is already focusing on writing about James Cone, I share with you one of my favorite poems, The House of Belonging by David Whyte.

May the darkness bring with it a peace to your house tonight. May the morning light flood your house with joy. 

“The House of Belonging”

Written by David Whyte

I awoke
 this morning
 in the gold light
 turning this way
 and that

thinking for
 a moment
 it was one
 day
 like any other.

But
 the veil had gone
 from my
 darkened heart
 and
 I thought

it must have been the quiet
 candlelight
 that filled my room,

it must have been
 the first
 easy rhythm
 with which I breathed
 myself to sleep,

it must have been
 the prayer I said
 speaking to the otherness
 of the night.

And
 I thought
 this is the good day
 you could
 meet your love,

this is the gray day
 someone close
 to you could die.

This is the day
 you realize
 how easily the thread
 is broken
 between this world
 and the next

and I found myself
 sitting up
 in the quiet pathway
 of light,

the tawny
 close grained cedar
 burning round
 me like fire
 and all the angels of this housely
 heaven ascending
 through the first
 roof of light
 the sun has made.

This is the bright home
 in which I live,
 this is where
 I ask
 my friends
 to come,
 this is where I want
 to love all the things
 it has taken me so long
 to learn to love.

This is the temple
 of my adult aloneness
 and I belong
 to that aloneness
 as I belong to my life.

There is no house
 like the house of belonging.