Home blessing beats cussin’ put off repairs

So, I’ve been hating on my house again.

Deferred maintenance is reaching somebody-call-HGTV-we-got-us-a-fixer-upper-here proportions. Moving is not a viable option at present.

So, yes, mad and gripey. Cussin’ some even.

So there’s only one thing to do: Pray.

O LORD, your Son told us to love and pray for our enemies. Deliver me from hatred and revenge toward this stupid house; in your good time, may all Creation stand reconciled before you, and if in the meantime you could help keep this stupid house standing, I’d be much obliged. Amen. (Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer). It’s a start. On a more serious note, there are such things as house blessings, you know.

Central Oklahoma Habitat for Humanity asks for God’s blessings on every house it builds. Habitat gave me the privilege of offering a blessing for one a couple of years ago.

And you may remember the housewarming blessing — “bread so that this house may never know hunger, salt so that life may always have flavor, wine that joy and prosperity may reign forever” — in that scene with George Bailey and his new bride, Mary, in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Now, you can have a home that is not in a house, and you can have a house that is not a home. The best thing is when a house and home merge together in your mind, heart and experience.

Maybe the attention I should be paying to my home has gotten distracted by my paying undue attention to flaws in the house that I can’t do anything about right now.

So, join me, if you are so inclined, in a different kind of fixer-upper:

Good Lord, just as you were pleased to relax in the home of Martha and Mary, abide also in this home. Bestow upon it an atmosphere of Christian love where your presence can be found, your word made known, your will accepted and your purpose carried out.

O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship; narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and strife.

Make its threshold be smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children or to straying feet, but rugged and strong enough to turn back the tempter’s power.

God, make the door of this house the gateway to thy eternal kingdom.

Amen. Thank you to the source: “Chalice Worship,” published by Chalice Press in St. Louis. It’s the book of worship for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

What’s a little deferred maintenance compared to a blessing like that? Just little bumps in the road of life, that’s what.