Our First Work Day:

We put out the call. Friends, family, church, acquaintances….we were not picky. The first rehab that needs to happen was in the back apartment, where the owners lived for sixty years. It was not a large space, and they had a few decades of life in there. They had carefully documented most of it. Not a tax return lost, or a bank statement. Or a magazine issue….they kept most of them. Their apartment was like the proverbial box in someone’s attic labeled: “String too short to save.” And you open it, and it is, of course, full of string!

If something had passed into their hands and not been completely used…it was saved. Until Jesus came back. And there were more linens and towels than an army would need. And then, of course, the cats had lived on top of most of it for a few years. And age came, and two of the three of them had died, and ill health came—and with it the energy to maintain anything. It was a mess. We had already spent hours and hours on it, hauled out bags of trash, what we called the “first layer.”

We had sorted and wiped and dumped the rusty cans of food out, wiped up rooms dusted in talcum powder, and gone through files and boxes. Hauled out all the upholstered furniture. And still….it was a mess.

So we called our friends, and they came. They were paid in Krauskoph bucks, designed by Sophia, redeemable in the near future for treasure, food, or merriment. Twenty or more people came, were assigned some of the ickiest tasks in their lives (have you ever shop-vacced a corner of dried cat droppings?), and worked like Trojans. Every cabinet was like opening a time-capsule from 1950 or 1960.

You never knew what you would find. The mystery and the conversation kept us going. Meanwhile, Thea and the girls did valiant childcare in the back house. The Circle Thrift truck showed up and left full. People hauled endlessly, worked in the chaotic basement, took hundreds of pieces of clothing off hangers.

And then Phil and Julia, the magical carpenters, got together and pondered the “false door” on the landing. And fifteen minutes later, Phil comes, an understated smile in his eyes. “Come see.” And the door is true, not false—a pocket door slid wide and open, finally connecting all parts of this complex house together. And the children are running through, and our hands are finding string-bound boxes and packages, one after the other, and opening them to the light.

The house, built by the rabbi and loved by the Liddington family these past sixty years, has moved into another era. They loved it in their way, which included treasuring and keeping many things.

But today demands different concerns: environmental and social. I hope to love it open, and I see it as a place of openness….doors spread wide, music flowing out of windows, Christa and Timothy coming out to offer tea, plants and trees producing beautiful fruit, someone offered shelter.

I take each tight package and pull at the string, tear off the paper, hold it to the light. That is what we are all doing, this first, blessed work day. Unwrapping this old house and holding it up to the sunlight.