“I dwell in Possibility…”

“I dwell in Possibility —

A fairer House than Prose —

More numerous of Windows —

Superior — for Doors —”

Emily Dickinson wrote this from her room. She wrote to the world her mind lived in, outside any confines we have.

Like St. Peter, we build Tabernacles, mostly to ourselves, mostly in our minds, in hope, sometimes in faith.

Religion is a tabernacle. It is designed, built and occupied by those who hope and believe. But it is built in a world beyond our control.

“Of Chambers as the Cedars —

Impregnable of Eye —

And for an Everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky —”

We can see it, think about the unseen, even build Tabernacles that try to manifest the unseen, but in the end our motivations are betrayed by the only outcome we are given: to build, here, now. Only.

Architects labor in the here and now, grasping at the unknowable – the spark of awe we feel every day in things we do not, and can not make ourselves. Our inabilities are legend and hidden in each of us.

Those inabilities are greater within a few of us this season. 2,000 years ago a bunch of us were ecstatically seeing the building of a Tabernacle in one of us – the creation beyond ourselves and everything we can see.

Then some others, of us, killed that person. For seeing beyond them, and us. The Tabernacle was torn down before it was built.

But a different reality, far greater than any tabernacle, is already there in each of us who try to build and demolish it. It is the “Still, Small, Voice” that we cannot un–hear.

The reality of God is not made by our words, or buildings, but it is found in us. But only if we see and hear that reality – we must do the seeing and hearing – for that capacity is also given to us.

Instead. I, and everyone else, including Emily and Peter want to make those Tabernacles, because that desire has been given to us, too.

It is what we are left to do. Especially in Lent.

“Of Visitors — the fairest —

For Occupation — This —

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise —”

Emily Dickinson