Temple Building

Each of us spends our days building our own temple so we can see with our eyes what it is we believe. It is often a life’s work, this temple building. What we believe is important. Sometimes, in fact, we are more aware of the importance than the belief itself, a feeling of meaning within us pointing toward a thought we call belief. This can make the building of temples confusing. What should it truly look like when the meaning it is meant to hold lacks all form?\ We are drawn to begin the building anyway. It is an odd relationship between the building and the builder. Sometimes the building teaches the builder what he should build. This seems backwards and yet it often is the case. As the temple grows we learn its shape even as we set each brick in place.

And in the hours when we rest from our work, we may sometimes become aware of what has grown within us. It is simpler to look upon the growing temple than this namelessness we feel. It is there and then it is gone. The temple is always exactly where we left it, unchanged by mood or thoughts or the sadness of shadows.

Only time affects the temple. We dream of building something as permanent as the earth itself, but every speck of dust that collects on its walls, and every stone before the altar worn smooth by our knees, teaches us of the truth. You rise from prayer at such moments, awareness shattering solid life, and all the world feels ready to crumble. Yet it is through those cracks in the walls of your temple that a light reveals what has taken shape within you. There is the temple at last, visible now that the walls between and you and it have toppled.

Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion. "A book to keep nearby whenever your writer's spirit needs feeding." Deb Caletti.

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