Jerusalem Journal # 174

“This is absolutely beautiful wood,” I remarked passionately, as Ron, an employee at a Galilean carpenter’s dream-shop, breezed through the doorway past me into a display area where slabs of dramatically grained wood await their debut as benches or tabletop works of art.

“It is not from us (translation: We didn’t make this),” he responded, his tiny brown kippa tipped and clipped precipitously from the left side of his closely shaven head. “It is from God,” he added definitively, prompting me to toss back a rhetorical question which both of us knew the answer to, “He does great work, doesn’t He?” It was a meeting of the minds, volleyed within seconds, and packed with theological implications.

Gary and Micah measure eucalyptus slabs to select just the right pieces

Expert carpentry + creativity = Wow! Gary and Micah (of Galilean roofing fame), have crafted those eucalyptus timbers into free-form stair treads for a stairway which is one of the final structural elements yet to be completed at The Place of Stories. We are nearing the finish line.

That home, perched on a ridge above the Sea of Galilee, is one of those projects in a lifetime which stretches both your spiritual and physical fiber as you are swept into being a participant in something so far beyond your realm of belief that you have to step back for perspective—and when you do, you can only marvel at where God took you as you witness His fingerprints in the details and design. For all of you who took the Bible study class I developed and taught entitled Master Design: Decorating by The Book, this remodeling project has become fuel for the book.

Two years ago we inscribed smooth stones from the Sea of Galilee with Bible verses of vision to set in the addition’s foundation

In both Christian and Jewish worlds, sales pitches abound for owning a square foot of soil in the Promised Land, where “Location, location, location!” is everything and ideologies still vie for possession of the most valuable real estate in the world. To own a house AND the soil it rests upon in this sacred spot was simply a “heart’s desire” less than ten years ago. Today it is a reality for us and we are surprised at the way it has all come together to be a creative sanctuary, not only for us, but for those who step across the threshold into a cradle of story, color, and embrace.

Don’t you love a great story that is full of details? The ancient scriptures are an inspirational wellspring of wisdom, wit, and detailed design for today’s living whose architect often uses the common to illustrate the fantastic. Slowly, every simple room at The Place of Stories is beginning to flesh out a story or images from the Biblical narrative through color, detail, texture, and a dose of imagination. Even the stairway was destined to be meaningfully “uplifting.”

The fountain mural is based on an 8th century mosaic floor in Jericho, yet with the prophetic twist of a lion that lies with a lamb

Last fall, sitting in a foot of cool water that filled the small pie-shaped fountain we jokingly call “our swimming pool,” I found it to be a relief after a long hot day of fighting construction dust and grouting stonework. “OK Lord, what kind of a WOW! do You have in mind for the stairs?”

I looked out across the top of the fountain at the blue waters of the Sea of Galilee and the sunbaked Golan Heights ridge, asking for answers from One who long ago walked the hills and valleys before me, who claimed to be both “The Bread of Life,” and “The Fountain of Living Waters.” My gaze dropped to the ceramic tile murals on the fountain walls depicting the Tree of Life. There was my answer staring back at me, The Tree of Life, or Etz Chaim, in Hebrew.

A natural bark edge gives each step character and definition