Everything Here Came From Somewhere Different

Everything in that room came from somewhere different.

The chair from one place, the table from another, the shelf from a house that is not this one. Two of the plates are from a set and the rest are not from anything. There is a lamp in the corner that arrived in circumstances nobody remembers.

And when a person says, kindly, that they like your place, there is a small internal correction that happens. You know it is not a room somebody put together. You know it was assembled out of what could be had, over years, one item at a time, mostly at moments when there was not much money about.

That is the fact. And the fact is not the problem.

The problem is one word, and the word is lesser.

Somewhere along the way the room got filed under a category that means nearly-a-real-room. Not quite the thing. The version somebody has when the proper version was not available. And every time you look at that room you are looking at it through that category, and the category is doing all the work, not the furniture.

We are not going to change one object in that room tonight. Nothing is going anywhere. What we are going to change is the category.

And then we are going to put three things that do not match on one shelf, on purpose, which is the first act of arrangement that room has ever had.

God hath tempered the body together

There is a passage where Paul is describing how a body is assembled, and the word he chooses is a word about deliberate combination.

But God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked. (1 Corinthians 12:24, King James Version)

Tempered together. In the old sense, tempering is mixing. Combining unlike things so that the result holds.

You are living in something the word of God describes as tempered rather than matched, and unlike things combined have never once been a lesser construction. 1 Corinthians 12:24 uses a word about deliberate mixing rather than about matching, and the Holy Spirit is the one who says so in a room where nothing came from the same place.

Now look at what Paul does with the parts that are not impressive, because it is not what anybody expects.

He does not upgrade them. He does not suggest replacing them. He gives more abundant honor to the part which lacked, which means the deficiency is met with honor rather than with a plan to fix it.

That is a completely different move from the one everybody makes about a room. The usual move is: this part is not good enough, therefore improve it or hide it. Paul's move is: this part lacks, therefore honor it more.

You have parts of a room that Scripture would honor rather than replace, and the thing in that house you like least has never once been the thing that needed removing first. The Spirit of God is the one who gives honor where a person expects a correction, and it is written in 1 Corinthians 12:24 that God tempered the whole thing together on purpose.

Gathered is a category too

Now the word, because the word is the whole subject.

There are two ways a room comes to exist. One is chosen. One is gathered.

Chosen is a room decided at one time by one person with a certain amount to spend. Gathered is a room that arrived over years, from many sources, by many routes, each item carrying a small piece of history about how it got there.

Those are two different categories. Neither is a lesser version of the other, and the only reason gathered feels lesser is that the culture only has advertisements for one of them.

You are living in a whole category of your own rather than in a failed version of somebody else's, and a gathered house has never once been an unfinished chosen one. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a false comparison out of a room, and 1 Corinthians 12:24 describes a body tempered together out of unlike parts.

And here is what a gathered room has that a chosen one cannot have, and it is not a consolation.

Every object in it is attached to a moment. The chair has a story about the week it arrived. The table came from somewhere with a person attached. Even the lamp nobody remembers is evidence of a stretch of years when things were being managed.

A chosen room is a record of one afternoon. A gathered room is a record of a decade of somebody keeping a household going.

You are surrounded by a record of years of your own work, and a room assembled out of what could be had has never once been a room without anything in it. The Spirit of God is the one who reads a house as a history, and it is written in 1 Corinthians 12:24 that unlike parts are tempered together by God rather than sorted.

And this, plainly, because it is the ground underneath the whole thing. That room is not a report on you. Not on your taste, not on your earning, not on the life you have made. A house assembled out of whatever could be afforded is not a verdict on the woman who assembled it, and I am not going to allow it to be read that way while she is sitting in the chair.

You are a woman whose worth was settled a long way from a living room, and what a house is made of has never once been a statement about who lives in it. 1 Corinthians 12:24 honors the part that lacked in 1 Corinthians 12, and the same Spirit who inspired that line is in the room with you.

Three things, one shelf, on purpose

So here is the assignment, and the phrase on purpose is doing all the work.

Put three things that do not match on one shelf together on purpose tonight, and step back and look at the three of them.

Pick three that are as unlike each other as possible. Different sizes, different materials, different decades, different sources. Do not try to make them work together. The whole exercise depends on their not working together.

Put them on one shelf, side by side, spaced deliberately.

You are arranging unlike things by your own hand, and three objects placed on purpose have never once been the same as three objects that ended up somewhere. The Holy Spirit is the one at work when a woman makes a decision about her own house, and 1 Corinthians 12:24 has God tempering unlike parts into one thing deliberately.

Then step back and look at them.

Not to judge the arrangement. To notice something that is genuinely there, which is that three unmatched things placed with intention do not read as leftovers. They read as a collection. And the only difference between a pile and a collection is that somebody decided.

That is not a trick and it is not positive thinking. It is a fact about how a human eye reads an arrangement, and it has been true in every room in history.

You are turning a set of leftovers into a collection with one decision, and intention has never once been a small ingredient in what a room looks like. The Spirit of God is the one present when a person arranges what she has rather than apologizes for it, and it is written in 1 Corinthians 12:24 that the honor goes to the part that lacked.