Don't build your house on the sandy land

When I was a kid my favorite record series was the Psalty the Singing Song Book series. The songs were fun, uplifting, and easy to sing, and the stories had great messages. It's funny how music sticks with you. I can still recite the presidents of the United States from a song I learned when I was seven, and this week I discovered that those messages from Psalty still apply. I've been singing one, in particular, to myself over and over for the last few days, and something Melissa Greene said in her message on Sunday at the Orchard connected to this tune.

Don't Build Your House on the Sandy Land is a song about setting a firm foundation in God to build your life rather than the shifting sand of worldy things. The words go like this: "Don't build your house on the sandy land. Don't build it too near the shore. Well it might look kind of nice, but you'll have to build it twice. Oh you'll have to build your house once more!" It's based from Matthew 7: 24-27 which states:

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

In her message, Melissa Greene packed in dozens of solid points for her listeners, but the one important point that applies to my life is the idea of how you live your life. She used the idea of destruction vs. deconstruction. Now I'm a slow processor, so there's a good chance that Melissa's message touched on this point and moved on, but that's where my brain stopped and started moving in a direction made just for me.

I've been living my life in a solid state of destruction, and it wasn't until just recently - I'd say about seven months ago - that I'd begun shifting to a state of deconstruction without even realizing where I was or where I was headed. Melissa was able to put a label to my morphing, and although I hate labels, my logical mind needs them to make sense of what is happening to me.

My entire life I'd built on shifty principles of human addiction, self-gratification, the need for attention, boundary-crossing, and using my relationship with God (or non-relationship for the last 24 years) as a way to achieve in this world. In my wake I'd left relationships torn to shreds by manipulation, lies (mostly unintentional), desperation, lust, and greed. Most often I could never get along with my superiors and always blamed them for being idiots. Much of my life was about me trying to get away from something that bothered me - my job, schooling, my parents, the kids, housework, etc. I was focused on what I didn't want and not what I wanted - and although my husband and I practiced mindfulness and the art of acceptance I just couldn't do it. It was just too hard to accept things that didn't seem to be gelling with my true self. And the resentment built up until my life completely imploded. The ultimate destruction.

In December I began my slow and steady walk with God again. In January I committed to turning things around and reconstructing, but first I had to deconstruct. Just because I had destroyed everything I had known over the last twenty-four years in my relationship with my husband didn't mean that I could just start rebuilding.

When he and I went to Mexico twenty-two years ago, we visited areas of Mayan ruins. At the time we had visited Dzibilchaltun, which was exactly that - in ruins. But there were parts of it that were still standing. These parts had to be deconstructed before they could be reconstructed so that everything would be put back together with solid adhesives. This way, the stones wouldn't fall to the ground during or after reconstruction. Deconstruction. Breaking down my ways, taking them apart piece by piece, and putting them back together with solid adhesives. I was a hot mess from top to bottom and needed a complete overhaul. And that's what I have been doing.

Building on a rock instead of on sandy land. Gluing my life back together with the solidarity of the Lord rather than what I had done for so long which is my belief that I was the only one I could depend on. I'm only human. Melissa pointed out that our humanness gets a bad rap. It does. But when we spend our lives being only human, honestly - we deserve a bad rap. We can't do amazing things without the work of God in our lives. It doesn't have to be THE God that I know. Each of us has our own version of God, but as long as we are under the understanding that he is there and that he has sent his son to die to save us because, honestly, we are all big fat sinners. Why do we seem to be running from what God truly wants for our lives? We are like a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids running around as if we know everything. How can we move past this egocentric way of life and build on a solid foundation? A rock. No more destruction.

And because of this I vow to follow what God's will is for my life and to spend my life reconstructing and helping others deconstruct so that they can reconstruct as well.

Namaste.