One Room Living

Imagine this, if you will.  

You are empty-nesters and have downsized.  Or you are a college student experiencing life on your own for the first time.  Or you ran into some financial trouble mandating a lifestyle contraction. Maybe you are considering the new tiny house trend!

Whatever the explanation, you are now living in one room.  

Yup.  The new living room includes a television room, a dining room, a bedroom, an office, an exercise area (well...) and, maybe even a kitchen.  We will assume that you want a door in the bathroom.  In fact, we insist.

You can appreciate the benefits of this new space.  Vacuum time is less than 5 minutes even when you are invested in deep cleaning.  Utility bills will become an incidental expense.  Your in-house traveling distances will be nearly zero!  (OK – that doesn’t work well for the 10,000 steps a day people, but for lazy-us, it works nicely!)

Imagining what a day might be like starts with rise-and-shine!  

Crawling out of bed, you look for coffee.  This requires six steps that are quite doable even when the fog of sleep has wrapped its comforter around you tightly.  The wake-up juice might already be prepared if you are blessed with a pot that can be programmed to automatically produce hot, steamy, and black brews for early risers.

Gripping the mug tightly (no one is going to take this thing away from you!) you can almost fall back into the living room.  There you find a comfy chair and consider your upcoming day.

The shower is on the other side of the room.  Is it too far?  No.  You’ve had your get-up-and-go cafe' noir.  You are nearly sighted now but even if not, a stumble or two will get you there.

Fully awakened by hot water over head-and-body, you are dressed. 

Daylight is finally observed, and windows can now be opened.  

But wait.  The bed is not made.  The coffee cup is still on the stand next to the recliner. And the blanket that covered you as you sipped heavenly mud lays crumpled together with a few socks on the floor. Horrified, you realize that ALL of this is visible to anyone that might be walking their dog past your open window.

To eliminate any embarrassment, you are forced into using your next break from work to straighten up this living space. There is no place to ‘hide’ anything.  Are you regretting this one-room-life choice?

Perhaps it is a good thing that this is nothing more than an imaginative exercise.  Life remains exactly as it was before reading this bit of fantasy.

Before I continue to my point, let’s take a moment to refill our mugs.  Should we schedule 10 minutes to traverse living spaces and pour another cup of joe or do you need more time?

I am going to suggest that we now consider how our living space rehearsal might be analogous to our personal living space right now. I am not discussing a house anymore but redefining personal living space in general.  This arena would be physically defined as the expanses in which we interact with others.  It would also include our internal dialogue (self-talk) as we navigate our lives.

Consider how we might feel if that dog-walking someone could see into our inner one-room life, our very private life.

This interloper would be able to see the unmade bed of twisted and tangled relationships as they really are.

Our window-peeper would surely notice the discarded opportunities laying on the floor because our choices meant that it was too inconvenient to attend and too easy to ignore that hurting neighbor.

This meddler would listen to our angry words and lies. We would be judged for efforts to climb ladders of success in ways that stepped over people with innuendo and slander.  All of this would be clearly visible in the stains, smudges, smears, and discolorations of the dirty carpets.

Outside looking in, this uninvited guest would see the cobwebs of our concealed brainwaves as we present a preferred version of ourselves to the social media public that substantially contradicts the evidence of our innermost thoughts.

We might think we have a choice here.  We might consider just closing the blinds. That would solve everything leaving the status quo firmly in place. 

But what if, that dog-walker was Jesus?

I am grateful that I have been forgiven for this messy one-room abode called myself.  I am grateful that each day I have an opportunity to clean again. Rather than hide my transgressions, I can choose to dispose of them each time I ask for forgiveness.  Each day, I can offer this solid-gold gift to others as well.  

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." Philippians 1:9-11

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