The Reverend Seth
Ethan Carey
July 23rd, 2006
First Congregational Church, Glen Ellyn,
Illinois
630-469-3096
Imagine, if you will, a hallway so long that it takes weeks to traverse. Imagine a labyrinth that rearranges itself in the dark, a maze of shifting walls and below freezing temperatures, whose staircases descend endlessly and whose windows open into the vacuum of non-existence. Pretty creepy, isn’t it?
Now imagine that this labyrinth is in your living room.
That is the bizarre and frightening premise of a novel that I picked up not too long ago, called House of Leaves. This is, hands down, the most difficult book I’ve ever tried to read—with the notable exception of The Idiot’s Guide to Christianity.
House of Leaves, like its subject matter, is a labyrinth. It’s essentially an academic research paper about a documentary called The Navidson Record—which is in turn about a house on Ash Tree lane that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside. But the research paper contains a plenitude of lengthy footnotes by the editor, who claims that The Navidson Record doesn’t actually exist. The editor’s notes have in turn has been edited by a second editor. If you’re already feeling confused, well, don’t worry; you should be.
And it gets much, much worse. The copious footnotes are intentionally rearranged in poor order. The text itself is as unreliable as the shifting corridors of the maze, and begins to fragment as the novel wears on, with the words printed in every which direction—sometimes even upside down or backwards. The narrative makes every effort to mimic both the narrow and cavernous passages of the endless maze.
I quite literally got lost in that book—and more than a little bit spooked. And when I finished reading every night before I went to bed, I found myself grateful for the steady, stable walls of my humble one bedroom apartment.
***
As you can see, the scripture we’re dealing with today has got me thinking about really big houses. Because once David has gotten settled into his own big house, the royal palace, he declares that he wants to build God a big house, too.
Up until now, God had been traveling with the Israelites inside the Ark of the Covenant, spending the night in a tent. For the nomadic tribes of Israel, this arrangement made a lot of sense. They were always on the move and their God moved with them, simple as that. But city dwellers of the ancient world believed that their city was home to a patron god or goddess that guarded its walls from enemy invaders and kept the people safe. And David was surely thinking along these lines, too. Now that the Israelites had settled in one spot and a royal throne had been established in Jerusalem, the next logical step was to build a temple to house the Ark, and the God that lived within.
But as it turns out, God doesn’t need a real estate agent.
“Are you the one to build me a house to live in?” God
asks David. “I’ve never lived in a house, but I have traveled alongside
Israel since the days of Egypt. And in all this time, have I ever once said to
the Israelites, ‘Build me a house of cedar?’”
It’s my impression that the world is not unlike a house. A really big house. It’s got nations and rooms. People live in them. We’re free to wander its infinite hallways, connect with its multitude of guests. Its carpet is the earth beneath our feet. Its walls are the looming forest trees, the towering buildings that scrape the sky. And the ceiling is the canopy of stars that hangs a million miles above our heads. And God is the master of the house, always watching us, always caring for us, always protecting us, and comforting us, even in the darkest regions of that vast estate.
But even as God looks on, trying to protect us, we keep hurting each other, our neighbors in this big house. And try as we might, we can’t seem to stop. Whether we punch someone in the face or forget their birthday, the pain is there. And as the scripture says, the punishment for our sins will come “with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.” In our ignorance and frustration and anger and ambition, so often we hurt the ones around us. And then they hurt us back.
And before long we start taking shots at each other, just like Holloway Roberts. And if we keep it up, we too will eventually get lost in the dark hallways of our own pride and fury.
I’m sure many of you have seen the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah that’s been plastered all over the news this week. It’s just a big, ugly example of what happens when people start taking shots at each other—literally. They say that schoolyard bullying is something that people grow out of, but I say it just gets more dangerous with age.
You know, when I first turned on the TV and saw stuff getting blown up, my first reaction was fear. And then I realized that the destruction was in Israel and Lebanon, and my second reaction was, “Oh, it’s just another eruption of violence in the Middle East.” And I changed the channel without another thought.
In a world where hatred and weapons are so powerful, we can’t afford to be that desensitized.
This is our house. This whole world is our house. If it burns down, there’s nowhere left to go.
***
Will Navidson, creator of The Navidson Record and not-so-proud owner of the house on Ash Tree lane, makes his final descent into the labyrinth. He goes alone, fully equipped, in search of the missing explorer Holloway Roberts. But he also gets lost after a few days, as does most of his rations and survival gear. And finally, when even hope seems lost Navidson finds something surprising in the depths of the maze—
A window.
I’ve often heard it said that when God closes a door, God also opens a window. And I never used to care much for that particular proverb, because I for one would rather walk through a door than try to crawl through some tiny window. But I’ve come to realize that I’ve been completely missing the point:
Doorways provide passage, but windows provide vision.
Maybe God closes doors in this big house that we live in because we’re barreling through them too quickly, too hard, knocking over our neighbors. And then God opens a window to give us pause— to show us something in our world, or in ourselves.
One of the many footnotes in the novel House of Leaves says this:
“[M]aze-treaders, whose vision ahead and behind is severely constricted and fragmented, suffer confusion, whereas maze-viewers who see the pattern whole, from above or in a diagram, are dazzled by its complex artistry….our perception of labyrinths is thus intrinsically unstable: change your perspective and the labyrinth seems to change.”
It’s a big world out there. And sometimes we need a better view.
***
When I was just a kid, my brother and I used to make-believe that we were on epic quests. We’d chart a course through our bedrooms, the kitchen, the living room, all the way down into dark depths of our basement like two heroes out to save the world. In our imaginations, we made vast journeys across desert wastes, sailed blue oceans, and conquered dark labyrinths.