Imagine our life is a house. Let's make
it yellow, with a deep front porch. Ferns swaying in the breeze.
Rocking chairs scattered around, moving gently back and forth.
We happily bought it, and although it
has some issues (all houses do), it has been a good house.
One day we discover we have a small
leak, it's a trickle at first that doesn't seem too threatening. We
try our best to stop it, but it can't be contained. We have
plumbers and then contractors come and try to fix it, but they say we
need to “take it up with the builder.” The drip, drip, drip of
the leaky faucet can be heard in the surrounding rooms. Over time the
trickle has turned into a small, yet steady stream. Slowly, (over
time) it's waters have started to seep into our entire house. Within
a year every room has damage.
We find out that the original builder
of the house built it knowing this faucet would eventually
leak. At first we are outraged. Who does that? Who builds such a
lovely thing and yet knows it will have serious, potentially
catastrophic damage?
After a year or two of working with
professionals, we realized that if we want the faucet to be fixed, we
have to take it up with this builder. Not surprisingly, this builder
can't be found in traditional ways. It seems that he enjoys letting
people search for him. A face to face meeting, where we could shake
his hand and see his face isn't possible. This clearly is no ordinary
house.
However, eventually we did find out
that he left a book for us, to navigate this slowly evolving disaster.
The funny thing is, the book isn't a
manual on how to turn off the faucet,
but rather how to work with the leak,
not against it.
We had been prepared for a simple fix.
We thought there were would be a three step diagram and the leak
would finally stop. We even had a worst case scenario in mind: a
major renovation. Then we would be done with this matter and get back
to our normal lives. We'd no longer have to constantly be patching
walls and reassuring ourselves that “everything is going to be
alright.”
I admit that what the book said was
unexpected. Instead of three easy steps to a quick fix, it lays out a
plan of acceptance? Seriously! It does not tell us how to
fix the leak. It doesn't have any information about plumbing or the
mechanisms of piping. Even more shocking; it reminds us to not give
up hope that the faucet may one day stop leaking. The book even
insists upon this. We have to both work with the leak as best as we
know how and yet also keep hoping that a remedy will come along.
The book also shows us something we
missed in the the first year or so we have been in the house. It says
that one day, this leak (as difficult and unruly as it is) could one
day become a much needed source of water.
Another year into the ordeal, we began
to realize that we are known as the house with the crazy faucet.
People began to hear of our “unlucky situation.” They were
curious. Who has a faucet that can't be turned off? This doesn't
happen in everybody's house.
They wonder what is with this
mysterious builder and manual?
One particularly hot summer, the
neighborhood had a drought. Water sources were very limited, and
people were desperate for just one cool drop of water. Only the
yellow house with all the water damage still had water. It seemed
their water came from a
much deeper well.
So they began to come and drink from
our leaky faucet. What had once seemed akin to a curse was actually
satisfying the real needs of others. It was beautiful to behold, the
life giving nature of something that once seemed so devastating.
You see, the faucet brought people in
who would have never visited before. It got people asking questions.
It built community.
As we were reading the manual one
night, it turns out we'd missed where it said the builder long ago
put together a clean up crew of sorts. What? A clean up crew? This was weird.
Well, we tried to keep an open mind....
It said that this crew would
consistently be found on Sunday mornings. That is when they usually
get together, but they would not be the plumbers we had expected.
Despite that fact, many of them had faced their own leaky faucets,
their own catastrophic damage. And even though they can't fix the
faucet, they can help sort out the damage.
And these crew members come alongside
of us, on our darkest days and
They gently remind us that the faucet
was designed by the builder....
to flood everything.
