On Buildings: The Wear of Time.

I note that my church has awakened to a roof crisis. Yesterday was Stewardship Sunday, and among other facts that came to light, the vestry indicated how big loans had had to be taken to repair a heritage roof on a heritage building, and how dealing with the costs of maintaining historic buildings is a major item of expenditure, that needs to be identified in the ongoing budget. How often do we take account of the tendency of roofs to decay, and of other things to dismay with the inevitable wear and tear of time?

            I was reminded of a class I took in Anglican Studies when I was doing my theology degree: the lecturer advised his students to look first at the roof of any church where they were thinking of taking a clergy position. If the roof’s not sound, he said, you’ll spent all your time there raising funds to fix it, and getting nothing else done. Ironically, this professor soon found himself in England, raising seven million pounds for the roof of a venerable church in Oxford, many centuries old, a historic building if ever there was one. (I believe the writing of many grant applications formed part of this process, and the money, astonishingly, did appear).

            Even my own local house has a tendency to cost me every year on things like painting the fascia boards (wha...?) replacing weathered doors, fixing broken locks and rebuilding crumbling steps, not to mention installing guard rails and better access features due to the faults of my health. So while the building is subject to the onslaughts of time and weather, my body is also showing signs and symptoms. I won’t discuss my car, superstitiously, since it’s booked in for service this week and some major item always needs to be replaced.

            I’ve tended to run my finances on current expenses only, and I suspect this is what happened to the vestry before the roof enlightenment experience. The revelation has occurred that there’s actually less money in my banking for current expenses than I thought, given that more than you’d imagine has to be set aside to combat the depredations of time. Everything decays, as the Buddha says, not only buildings but health, relationships and even spiritual signs. Unless the worn parts are renewed, the eventual account is startling.

            How much time and concentration, then, needs to be set aside for renewal of our spiritual relationships? Do we still dream on, with an image of God formed in our childhood, drawing from a depleting source of energy and life? How much reading, spiritual conversation, liturgy and meditation do we need to do to increase our understanding and commitment to divine matters? How much more love of neighbour do we need to show forth, and in what form? Because mark my words, things are wearing out, and we don’t want the rain coming in.