It's hard to say out of the room...

“In my Father's house are

many mansions [rooms]:

if it were not so,

I would have told you…”

- John 14:2: Bible

Sometimes it is simply impossible to stay out of that room.  


Actually, there are a lot of rooms in the house.  More rooms than a fellow could possible visit…at least not all at one time.

The reading room is a great place to spend time.  There seems to be so much to learn …things one would never experience on their own…mostly because there simply isn’t time.  Voyeurism at its most meaningful – full of adventures, mysteries, histories of remarkable women and men filling them all.  In the reading room, one gets the sense just how delicate and interconnected we all are.  How the tiniest ripple in the pond of humanity can change an entire course of history.  In this room, it is very easy to say, “I didn’t know that!” or “So that’s how that works!” It is here where one finds a whole range of emotion…out loud laughter, gentle tears, heart pounding excitement, one’s deepest fears…Yes sir, that reading room is something else.

Then there is the music room…what a great place that is.  Wow!  The amount of music that has gone through the walls of that place – it is unimaginable!  It seems the great thing about the music room is the amazing variety of both sound and feeling that comes when listening to all of those wonderful noises – for they are, in many ways simply that…organized noises vibrating through the air (no wires here) and touching us in the deepest of places.  Gospel, rock and roll, country, bluegrass, opera, symphony, folk, musical theatre, African, South American…the words, the rhythms…there is so much, it is impossible to try to recall…sometimes even parts of it.  The great thing about this room is not just the variety, but the way one can find just the right music that touches them…you know, custom fit – tailored just for each one of us.

I particularly like the cooking room – I mean, who doesn’t?  The things in that larder are almost overwhelming, what with the amazing variety and combinations of plants and animals and fish and fowl.  The bounty that passes through this room is awesome.  It’s not just what is there, but the process of preparing it.  Who could not recall the smell of warm bread in the oven or coffee brewing in the early morning hours?  The comfort of having something warm on a cold winter’s day, or cold in the heat of the summer.  There is such an assortment; it is difficult to imagine all the variations. Try closing your eyes and imagine all the food you might eat in a lifetime, sitting in one big pile.  It would be almost impossible to even know where to begin eating all that stuff.

The workroom occupies a lot of time.  In the beginning, of course, lots of is spent in the school room – whether it be learning a mental or physical task… the school room is a must, just to get permission to enter the work room.  There surely are lessons learned outside the formality of school, but NOTHING is accomplished without time spent formally or informally in that place…but the point here is the work room.  The great thing about this room is the continual sharpening of the sword that happens here.  It turns out the work room is really just the schoolroom in disguise.  The more time spent in this room, the better skilled one becomes, and the more skilled one becomes, the more one learns…it is a marvelous cycle!

Lots of us spend time in the management room…the management room – the place where one works through the issues confronted on a daily basis. We are creatures designed to ask questions and to solve problems that pop up as we float on the river of life…you know, the unexpected swiftness of rapids…the water falls…the tree across the way…all of the unanticipated things we engage, problems we solve and issues we undertake.  You see, in addition to question askers, we are problem solvers.  We like nothing better than successfully solving a problem.  This is how the great adventurers and conquerors of history created civilizations…spurred by questions – the ‘what if’ – entering the unknown. Somehow we are just wired that way – success bringing a degree of satisfaction…failure disappointment and frustration. 

Then there is the distraction room.  In fact, one could argue, depending how one spends their time in the variety of rooms available in our house, the distraction room may influence all the others.  You know what I mean…the reading room, the music room, the cooking room, the work/school room, the management room…all of it occupying time to avoid the reality room.

Yeah – the reality room…hmmm.  Sometimes this is a meaningful and helpful place.  It puts things in perspective…creates a sense of objectivity…clarity.  Sitting there quietly and assessing the elements of our lives often brings a little realism to our thought process. Occasionally this room needs the help of others to get it properly furnished.  We don’t always see thing as they are (whatever that really means); so a little assistance from an outside source can be helpful. 

I have avoided talking about the family room.  This room can be complicated…very complicated.  You pick your friends, but you are, well, born into your family right?  This has been a great room in my life.  It provided the foundation materials for all the other rooms of the house…set the context…focused the view…created the basic template.  Even with the loss of my parents, it has remained strong and solid.  This room has a lot of smaller rooms, and one of those smaller rooms is, at this time of my life, the most painful…the ‘brother room.’

The past couple of years, I’ve been spending as much time as possible in the rooms mentioned here, and many more, it might be added.  All of them, however have been colored by the ‘distraction room’ to avoid the ‘reality room,’ but mostly to keep out of the ‘brother room.’

The brother room was always my favorite.  It was secure room…a place of comfort…a known commodity.  It was such a familiar room; it was easy to simply take it for granted.  Even being the single male with two sisters, it has been a great room full of so many meaningful experiences.

But now…but now as my sister’s health and mind deteriorate at an astounding pace…it is a fearful and frustrating place.  It is a room where knowledge fails me…where the music plays only chaotic dissonance…the food left a little a little too long on the counter…the work meaningless and the management…well, the management seems nothing more than a series of diminishing efforts in a losing battle.  No solution to the problem, no gratification for success…simply the emptiness of the unavoidable conclusion.

For the most part, I stay out of this room…but there are the moments in the quiet of the night when it seems all the rooms I so love, are locked up tight, and I am driven to the ‘brother room.’  It is here where the remembered laughter and joy turns to tears…it is here where the ‘…tigers come…’ to tear at the fabric of memory.

And yet, it is in these quiet moments of despair, when I am unable to keep from sinking into the quagmire of self pity, she comes to me in all the vibrancy and strength that was her life…she comes with the quickness of wit and the quietness we often shared just being together.  She draws me into the memory room, pulling me from the darkness, reminding me there is a context…there is a meaning, even if for the moment it is unknown.  In this room, the air is filled with the knowledge of a lifetime of experience, the aroma of love, the music of faith, and the hope of the yet unseen. 

Of all the rooms God has created in the house that is my mind…it is here in my memories where I find solace for my soul.

- ted