This Old House

This Old House

The other day, I was driving with another couple to Carmen, MB, when we came over a hill and saw a dilapidated farmyard. The driver remarked that he had never seen that yard site before despite having driven down that road many times. I suggested an art installation, since I had heard about an artist creating or altering an old farmyard in western Manitoba. We decided to stop in on our way back.

We drove onto the field access road and got out to explore. Was this an authentic old farmyard that no one had simply noticed before, or was it an art installation? And at first, it was really hard to tell: the windows were clearly from an earlier era and the style of painting and room arrangement and building design were very similar to other older houses we were familiar with. But the more we explored, the more clues we noticed that indicated it was a new construction made to look old. The barn was constructed with flimsy boards that wouldn't keep out the wind, one of the rooms upstairs had no access at all – you could only look in. And then I noticed that the ceiling of the main floor was made with canvas and painted to look like saggy, water-stained, old chipboard. It was ingenious!

The driver's comment as we headed back to the car: “Now why would anyone want to do that?” Which is a great question. Why do any of us do the things we do? It's not uncommon for one person's activities or lifestyle to not make much sense to another.

No matter what a person does - whether it is build a new house to look like it is old, create or repair things, teach or study something, plan or grow things, go down this path or that – one can always find a skeptic and a supporter. It becomes important to take ownership of one's choices and to do something that brings satisfaction and fulfillment. What a person does becomes an expression of oneself, a legacy one leaves behind, a way to inscribe one's initials on the wall of time, to prove that “I was here” and it mattered.

                “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in

             the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning

             nor knowledge nor wisdom.”

                                                        Ecclesiastes 9:10

            “And whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name

             of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

                                                        Colossians 3:17