Our dining table has been moved many times in the nineteen years we’ve had it, in the larger sense (state to state, house to house) and in the smaller one (within a room). In years past, it was in the front room, at one end or the other, parallel to a side wall or angled to make room for the Christmas tree. It stands in the near center now. My son Colin suggested we move the table there. The table is the gathering point for meals, so why not have it as the focal point of the room?

Colin wanted a more balanced room, so he applied feng shui principles to the furniture placement. After dinner, I helped him move a couple of book cases, the sofa, and a side board. The rug was rolled up for storage, and the table moved to the room’s center, parallel to the long walls of the room. But it didn’t work. In the exact center, it didn’t line up with the front windows. Off center, it didn’t line up with the book cases. No way to center the table that would work for the room as a whole.

Colin looked around for a minute, then moved one end of the table a few inches to the left. No longer aligned with the walls, the angled table brought the room into harmony. A couple of inches brought a sense of movement to the room that I cannot explain. The furniture, windows, and doorways complement each other now, and the space is warm and peaceful.

I experience this complementarity every night at dinner. I feel it now, seated at the table, typing these words on my laptop. Just a matter of angle and inches, no new furniture or construction necessary. It’s a life lesson I continue to learn every day. What I need for a life lived in harmony is at hand – I just need the eyes to see it, and a willingness to adjust accordingly.

My son Colin bought it at the Museum of Science, this silver-framed melting clock straight out of Salvador Dali’s time bending work, The Persistence of Memory (oil on canvas, 1931). Except for the Roman numerals on the face, it looks just like the timepiece draped over the oozing self portrait Dali put in the center of his painting. Right now, it hangs off the side of a tall bookcase, just over a floor lamp. It’s been moved several times over the past few years, and I’m sure it will find itself spending time in another location in years to come.

The thing about this clock, it doesn’t work anymore. It’s been knocked off shelves so many times by people, cats, and Nerf balls that it’s always 10:20. Even when it worked, it was hard to tell time by it; the silver frame and curved plastic front reflect light back, often obscuring the numbers and hands. XI, XII, and I are folded, resting on top of the shelf and partially hanging down. VI and VII are slightly flared to the front, and the whole thing is off center – not a straight edge anywhere on the face or circumference.

As a rule, I have two reasons for keeping things: beauty and function. If someone here finds it beautiful or useful, then its presence adds to the quality of life. If something doesn’t work or isn’t beautiful, then it needs to find a life elsewhere. This clock isn’t beautiful and doesn’t function anymore, but it’s here to stay because it’s in a category of its own: truth bearing.

Time isn’t separate from reality, it’s part of the created universe. It bends with gravity and is affected by life experience. It’s part of life’s fabric. Awareness of measured clock time doesn’t guarantee a life well lived; preoccupation with the passing hours leads to getting through life, not experiencing life as God given and God held. When time in my front room is perpetually 10:20, I remember it is also perpetually and eternally God’s. Perhaps a bit hard to see, but it is a beautiful and way beyond useful truth.

We have a canine guest right now. Montana’s owners needed a place for her to live while one of their other dogs had puppies – an extended vacation for Montana, and a chance for us to care for a friendly, happy, low maintenance golden retriever. We have two cats, but Montana is our first dog. Even though it’s only for a few weeks, we will miss her when she goes home.

Montana loves to snuggle up with someone when it’s bed time, and makes sad sounds if left alone at night. My son Jared loves having her with him, but she’s sizable and doesn’t share bed space well, so he’s been sleeping on the flip-out sofa. It’s queen size, with enough room for Montana at the bottom and Jared in the upper half. There’s even space for our cats; the two of them like to study Montana while she’s sleeping. Everyone is happy, everyone has plenty of room, and no one loses sleep.

We have no spare bedroom, so we got this sofa from LLBean a dozen years ago.  It’s in the room where our Christmas tree goes, so overnight visitors during the holidays have a twinkly eight foot night light. Friends and relatives, acquaintances and a few strangers have found rest on it. My husband and I have spent a few nights on it, making sure it’s comfortable enough for guests. When they were younger, my sons made forts with it and used it for indoor camping – good weather year round, and a good place to play flashlight tag.

Usually, the flip-out is in its Clark Kent sofa form, only the Superman bed when needed. It’s a good place to read a book or have a glass of wine with friends. It’s seen its share of tears and smiles from guests of all ages. It’s been moved around a few times, changing place to fit the season and need. There’s nothing fancy about it, but it’s comfortable and sturdy. It is a hospitable presence in my home, making comfortable my family and those who visit.

I hope the same can be said of me and my family – that we are comfortable here, and we make others feel comfortable as well. Hospitality is a virtue appreciated by guests and strangers, but rarely given a thought by those who practice it. Angels disguised as strangers, friends, and family are everywhere. Let’s hope I have the good sense to invite them in – now that my sofa is Montana approved…

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrews 13:2

Be hospitable to one another without complaining. I Peter 4:9

My coffee table is distressed. It’s been that way since my husband and I found it in a New Jersey furniture store. It was in a room with a sign reading, “distressed furniture,” surrounded by end tables, chairs, and dressers. I’ve watched enough episodes of This Old House to know that distressed furniture comes with marks, not emotional and psychological pain needing urgent attention. Still, it’s hard to use the term without a smile or a laugh.

Why did we buy a pre-dented and dinged table? Well, it’s a great table – stable, just the right size and shape, with rounded corners and turned legs. And we didn’t want a table so perfect that we wouldn’t use it. Who wants to wreck a perfect finish by putting the first scratch on the top? One scratch alone is obvious and terrible; one scratch among several is not even noticeable. No need to worry when the cat runs across it or when my sons play ping pong on it.

Does the table look beat up? Not at all. The finish is warm. The imperfections make it interesting, especially when the sun touches them. It cleans up well. Chip and dip, homework, books, candles, and Legos all find their way to the coffee table – and so does my family. The table is well used and appreciated, a valued part of the living space we call home. Distressed by design, imperfectly beautiful and worthwhile in reality.

Distressed in human terms is something else. It’s what happens when we get overwhelmed, sometimes so concerned with our own imperfections that we cannot function. Mistakes and shortcomings are character flaws that embarrass and paralyze us, not things that make us interesting and beautiful. Spring cleaning my table reminds me that usually I choose the kind of distress I live with: surface imperfections that make life interesting and worthwhile, or innate flaws that cripple the heart and soul.

Eija Heward made a stained glass cross for me a few years back. The cross itself mother-of-pearl. A sunny yellow circle surrounds the center of the cross, with blue and yellow rays angling out of it. It’s a sunburst cross. It matches my living room colors perfectly, and spends a good part of the year there on a high shelf. I’d like to hang it in a window, but my two cats jump for it whenever I make the attempt. When the afternoon sun hits it, my cross glows. When I see it, I think of Eija, my faith, and the beauty of the world. Then comes summer.

In the good weather, my cross moves outside to a wrought iron trellis shaped like a church window – pointed on the top, curving downward, and ending in straight sides. The cross hangs from the center point, suspended the trellis. Soon after the sun rises, its rays find the cross, sending blue and yellow light everywhere. If there’s a breeze, the turning cross flashes so brightly it can be seen all the way down the street. What is beautiful and serene in my living room is sparkly and brilliant in direct sunlight. Sometimes it’s so bright the cross itself disappears in the light. I’m amazed every time I see it flash and shine.

A cross is a symbol of the Christian faith, but this cross more than most I’ve ever seen. It is beautiful in any location, but only when it is filled with sunlight is it fully itself. To bear light so well that it’s form disappears, transformed into brilliance: isn’t that what faith and life are all about? Thank you, Eija, for the cross and the truth that shines through it.

God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover God has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

A square wooden clock with a round face hangs on the chimney wall in my kitchen. My son found it at a yard sale when he was in kindergarten – light wood with apples painted around the face. For him, it was love at first sight. In seven years, I’ve changed the batteries three times. It survived the kitchen painting and purge of 2011. It’s the clock I check most often. There’s something comforting about seeing the hands move through the hours, marking the passage of time by position as well as number. It matches my apple cookie jar – a wedding gift, and a replica of the one my grandmother had in her kitchen. Cookie jar, cookie jar, clock – connecting me, my son, and my grandmother through time and motif.

The earth turns, the seasons change, and every living thing ages. My apple clock doesn’t tell me anything about the passing of time beyond the dozen hours I’m living in right now. Clock time looks no different today than seven years ago, but time has transformed my son. The hands pass through the same numbers inscribed on the same circle, unchanged even though my grandmother no longer lives. This apple clock cannot display the beginning of my life or its impending end, it just reveals the when I am in right now.

I think clocks, like time itself, are double-edged. Knowing the time can help me appreciate everything this day brings. Every hour can be found on my clock, and in every hour is the time to encounter God and others. Love is given or withheld in today’s measured time, and my clock reminds me of this. But there is the other edge: no clock can show how my hours become days, weeks, months, and years. Clock time is the same whether I waste my days or live them well. If I don’t pay attention to what the clock can’t tell me, what’s beyond the numbers and hands, I just may miss out on the adventure of this God given lifetime.