Old Buildings

Posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 at 11:47 am

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As I sit in my office today I can see a gas station being torn down right outside my window.  In between lightning, rain, and other such normal Florida summer sights, I see a large machine simply tearing down the building that has been standing since I was a student here (1990).  There is something about buildings being torn down that makes me melancholy, especially in the rain.  It seems like buildings ought to last at least as long as people.
I have this theory that the tearing down of buildings disturb us because it reminds us that our building will be torn down.  We can make all the repairs that we like, but it won’t last.  We fix the upper stories with eye glasses and hair pieces; the lower stories with knee braces and special shoes, but the problems with the construction continue to plague us as our building gets older and older.  We see buildings that look as though they should last forever being torn down and at some level we think, “That is happening to me.” Time is our bulldozer and it continues along no matter what we put in its way.  We can lie about our age, but the building is coming down at some point, no matter what we say.

Years ago there was at my father’s church a building that we called, appropriately enough, “the old building.” It had been the place where the first church had started and over the years had become more and more of a problem.  The roof leaked, the water pooled in the floor when there was a bad rain, there was no way to properly lock the place up, it was time for it to go.  I remember when it finally came time to tear that old building down what an emotional experience it was for me. The day before the demolition company came I walked through the twenty or so rooms looking around and was flooded with memories of what had happened in those rooms.  I had been in sixth grade Sunday School and won a fishing trip for memorizing the books of the Bible; I had sat in the big room watching movies (or films as we were required to call them) like “Thief in the Night” and “If the footman Tire You (a film so violent that it would receive at least a pg13 today); I had come to know much about the Lord’s grace and love in those rooms many times through the words of my Dad or Mom.  In another day the rooms would be gone, the building would cease to exist.  In another fifteen or twenty years very few people would even remember that building.

I realized then that I needed to live my life so that when the building is gone I will have left something behind.  Maybe just a small footprint of a few blogs on a website, maybe a couple of sermons that someone found helpful, or maybe just a life that was honorable to our Lord, but something.  If you happen to drive by a building that is being torn down, think about what that building accomplished in its day.  What did it mean to those who used it?  Will the memory last?  Then think of your own activities, the building that you are housed in is someday going to come down.  Will anyone remember having visited it?  I’m trying, despite my building being a little broken down.  And You?

Onward . . .

DrSamLam