The Attic

Y ou’ve opened the door, and shadows pour into the hall, old shapes and forms beckon from within, and you hesitate before you enter this attic room of hidden memories; a place where old things are stored and forgotten – until you opened the door once again.
     What caused you this day to seek and remember the things you left behind? What caused you to wander into this dark and lonely room; a room filled with dust and crooked things put away from you so long ago? Why wonder at them now, when warmth and a brand new life beckon to you from outside?
     The sun is trying to pour through this tiny attic window. The dirt on the glass is so thick you can hardly see through the filthy panes that make a blue sky gray. The afternoon is only here for a moment, then the daylight is gone, and here you spend your allotted minutes pouring over memories of a life that held you captive.
     There is a map on the wall, stained now where the rain of a thousand storms had entered through the cracks. It is a chart of distresses, a legacy of futility. You trace the highways with your finger and wonder where you would have been if you had only lingered, here or there, just a little while longer. Would you have strayed any further? And if you had remained, would these attic treasures ever kept their promises?
     You follow the crooked paths for a while before you realize they trail off and away, back into the faded corners, coming to no conclusion after all the miles. Now you can see where the old paths would have left you – trapped in some rain soaked corner, torn and withered.
     Your finger leaves the ruined path as you turn your back on the map and this room of deceptive treasures. Believe that the hollow spaces you feel will all be filled the moment you close the door to this attic room and leave the past behind.

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.
Philippians 3:13,14, II Corinthians 5:17

copyright 1991 by H.D. Shively

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