For a time in a previous life I managed rental properties. Though I actually was responsible for one 17-unit building (my header photo), I had a lot to do with the owner's other six or eight properties, particularly cleaning apartments when tenants left them vacant of human occupants. That experience plus seeing so many real estate signs announcing a vacant office building, retail space, or residential dwelling has me constantly connecting "vacant" and "vacancy" with bricks and mortar.
Vacant of human occupants is the usual expectation when you see an commercial or condo or other property up for rent, lease, or sale. But have you noticed many houses and apartments seem to be vacant or devoid of life? I mean life as in connecting to other people in your family or maybe housemates who rent or lease and stay there with you. Connecting emotionally, spiritually, and practically, too.
• How was your day?
• Do you want to make dinner together this week?
• I got avocados on sale! Let's create something good with them!
• I'd love your opinion on this client project I've been working on.
It often feels easier and for sure it's less threatening simply to co-exist in a space, pass each other coming and going, sit at opposite ends of the table without a word or even a smile or acknowledgement. It's easier to be a vacant presence than a lively, nurturing one.
A house, condo, apartment, or palace may physically contain a human or two or three, maybe a family of eight or ten, but is it vacant or is it occupied with people fully engaging each other's lives and supporting one another?
How about your family? Your roommates-housemates-flatmates? Even your workplace, whether it's a school, a retail, or other commercial space, do those walls, floors, and ceilings hold life and hope within them or is it vacant?
Think about it!
My top footer image is a house a couple streets over from the place I shared with a friend during my last year in Boston. I don't know who lived in the triple-decker I photographed, but I do know my friend and I had an easy-going, friendly, helpful relationship and that place definitely wasn't vacant.
This house simply roars with life,
ReplyDeletethe barky canine kind
that reflects both joy and strife,
and would just blow the mind
of anyone who didn't know
the great frat house milieu
in which the adolescents grow
to men, and learn exactly what to do
when adult life throws them a curve
and things get out of hand.
Come, step in! You may observe
(and learn to understand)
why a method God employs
is the making of a Joyful Noise.
i like this twist on the word vacant, not one that I had considered. :) FMF4
ReplyDeleteOooo that is good so many of our relationships in our homes are becoming vacant as we get very sucked into the world at our fingertips. I have been making a conscious effort to keep my phone away from me when I am sitting with my family.
ReplyDeleteA Visit from your FMF neighbor :) #3
DeleteThank you for this insight! Now I'm asking God to fill all of our relationships with life.
ReplyDelete