Building in Stages

Many of the buildings on the Caribbean island of Anguilla are made of concrete. It is shaped and poured and painted sometimes so it looks like wood or stucco-type plaster. And sometimes it is just left gray and plain. One of the interesting things about the buildings, houses in particular, is the rebar sticking out of the top. The builders have prepared for another storey even though they have not been able to build it at the start, because materials or money are too scarce. All over the island, you see these houses, fully occupied, with metal rods decorating the top and extending to the sky in the hope of more to come some day.

I like this as an image for life. We are building our houses at the same time we are living in them. We are also thinking we will be able to add on, enlarge, do more, and we make plans for that. Sometimes those plans come to fruition and sometimes they just stick out and rust in the rain. Sometimes we finish what we start, sometimes others do it after we are gone, and sometimes what we have is all that will ever be. And no matter what, we still go on living in what we have made, making a home with what we have, and not waiting for everything to be perfect and final and finished. And isn’t life just like that?