The dramatic transformation that our old house continues to undergo, as of Week 6 of renovation, inspired the following reflections — about faith, surrender and resurrection, and about what it means to call a residence “home.”

This Old House: A Poem

Before we tore down your walls like sixth graders at a dissection, only more affectionately, you had stood at attention. And the “Open House” sign had let us in.

You had potential, we thought when we drove away, our first-born strapped in his car seat, oblivious.

Something left unspoken which could come to be — was it the creaky wood floors or the ancient fuse box or the wood-paneled attic? — convinced us we could live here: that we could call you “home.”

And through the years, many friends have passed through your doors.

One died too young and unexpectedly, but I think I catch a flutter of her spirit every so often here — like a throb of arthritic pain on a rainy day, reminding me I’m alive. She lived next-door and loved to rock our children.

Those same children have cut teeth here and run mud tracks across that old linoleum floor and with their friends played under your eves. And within these walls you’ve been privy to all the little human dramas that, when added together, make our lives so uniquely our own.

One hundred famous last words later, about how one day we’ll move to some exotic land and raise our children there, your embrace still keeps us here.

(Even the bats in the attic last fall couldn’t drive us away, after we abandoned you to face their exorcism alone — those pock-marked eves the only reminder.)

One year later, we tore down those rotting beams and ripped open your intestines: an act of loyalty and affection, if not true love.

Unsurprisingly, you’ve borne it all with no complaints.

Still I can’t help but wonder, while standing among these solemn ruins tonight, if nearly a century is finally long enough to learn the art of being broken in order to be remade: To endure coming undone with the quiet assurance that the suffering is not in vain.

Then again, to stand cut down and exposed to the universe, and still, to raise your broken limbs to the sky: is that humble faith or proud rebellion? A final surrender or a last hurrah?

Maybe it is both … or does the fact that you’re inanimate make them something else?

This old house dares me to wonder.