It was not pretty, or that is what some would say,
but these four walls pandered to those who find beauty
in what is imperfect.
While it did not have a fountain,
granite and grand,
it had a well, with history and many seasons to speak of.
One would not make a grand entrance walking into this house,
pushing aside heavy double doors with windows and precision paint.
Your entry would be humble, knocking on the aging red wood,
and the house would make you feel warm and at home.
The inside was country; couldn't be called anything else, nor would it
choose to be, because this house could never be anything else.
The stairs may have creaked, the cabinets didn't shut perfectly,
and on a rainy night there may have been a leak or two,
but this house never tried to be anything it wasn't.
It was what it was,
and that was something special.
And on a warm summer afternoon, with a cold drink in hand,
the house would honor us, and provide us with a front row seat
to the beauty of God's great work.

I returned to the house many years later to find that it was no longer there.
Just an empty clearing in the trees.
But without hesitation, I grabbed a folding chair out of my car,
a cold drink, and set up where the deck once stood,
looking out at the same view I had so many times before.
I felt energy behind me.
So many people breathed life into that house,
with all the laughs, cries, and years growing up or growing old.
I knew then that a house is more than four walls and a roof.
Much like a person, when we pass on, and move from our bodies,
we continue to live in the minds and hearts of those we left behind,
and just the energy alone that we spent at any given time or place,
it never dies.
I lifted my cold drink, looked to the sky, and made a toast,
celebrating everlasting life.