"Good morning", I attempted in the least groggy voice i could muster as I leaned over the edge of the cot. Dad was peering into the booth through a slit in one of the fabric walls, the one with the EDCO recycle bin on the other side. He nodded his regards and continued walking, teapot in hand, up the hill and to his office. When he had seen that I was awake and attempting communication, I watched affection mingle with amusement in his eyes. That rugged smirk probably stayed on his face for several paces after he left our temporary dwelling, perhaps longer.
I looked down and was faced with the bloodshot eyes of my sister as she grappled with the fact that she was awake, she was on the ground outside, there was a dog sprawled out on her blankets nearly on top of her, and my predawn face was dangling over hers. "Why wouldjou say 'g'morning'?" She stretched half heartedly and yawned, "... whatime is it?" After my explanation, we both fell back into sleep with the mist slowly dissipating around us and the light growing steadily.
Almost every autumn, we drag our bedding out side, unroll mats and cots, hang sheets and tree branches from various structures to create semi-sheltered habitations, and then we live out there for a week. Some years we are more committed than others. Some we can be found eating our meals and playing games in the shelters. Some years we only sleep in them. One year we slept in cardboard boxes for a week with only sleeping bags and cats to stay warm.
When I was little, the reason for this week was to camp out for a couple hours, smell the tree branches and go back inside when it got cold. When I grew a little older, I remembered when the Israelites had wandered in the wilderness and Adonai had come to live with them in a tent called a tabernacle. I liked to draw the connection between that tabernacle and a little stable in Bethlehem thousands of years later; both temporary dwelling places where the Creator came to live with us. Then I began using this week of homelessness to identify with the millions of people around the world who have no permanent dwelling. I would sleep under the stars imagining what it must be like to live outside all year round, relying on the charity or whims of others to get through the next day. What would it be like to know that there was no bedroom to go back to if it got too cold? What would it be like to know that the only guarantied meal was the one that I just ate? What if these people sharing this space with me were not family and friends?
I would catch myself thinking of and praying for people living under the weight of constant struggle. People just down on their luck, and people trapped in sub-poverty, starving before birth. Displaced families crossing international borders, some seeking a better life, some seeking the
right to life. I think of these and fail to feel the extent of their hardships. God lives with them.
This year I am caught with a blank stare slapped on my face as I stumble through the fact that
I am a temporary dwelling. Just like our little tents and cardboard shacks will sooner or later cave to the elements or be torn down, our lives here will only last as long as they last. But just like the tabernacle in the wilderness, my life is a holy residence. God lives with me...
in me.
I didn't want to get out of bed this morning when I woke my sister up. Not because the cot was entirely comfortable, nor because I was terribly sleepy, and not because I couldn't wait for the dog to try to lick my face one more time. But simply because God was living there with us.
It is the beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere. The air is crisp, the sun is low, and everything is dry. For southern California, it is simply the beginning of a cooler summer with more wind and fire danger. Some trees change colors and lose their leaves, but most stay the same, clinging to the hope that water will fall from the sky in a few months or lounging in the luxury of consistent irrigation.
