Now that I've had some time to admire our old house, I have found that its style and design sits somewhere between miserly and excess. It long along lost all traces of level and plumb, but remains accessible and honest in every worn and layered detail. Its crackled and dappled finish, faded through service and utility, offers an open door and true friendship to all. It embodies hospitality laced with generosity. It has been befriended by generations. It is old, but strong. Worn, yet hard working. True and honest in every detail and by living in it I learn a new way of thinking. I no longer fixate on perfection and how I can secure this or that or the other thing. Worldly concerns dim and eternity comes into focus. Somehow the variegated hues of the warn wood, faded by each hand that embraced the hand rail or closed the front door, keeps me mindful that this house—nay, this universe—didn’t begin with me, and it won’t end with me either. I find myself wondering what I will have to say to the Creator of the Universe when I stand at His feet and give an account of how I spent the gift of time He gave me.