The Faucet

Imagine our life is a house. Let's make it yellow, with a deep front porch. Ferns swaying in the breeze. Rocking chairs scattered around, moving gently back and forth.

We happily bought it, and although it has some issues (all houses do), it has been a good house.

One day we discover we have a small leak, it's a trickle at first that doesn't seem too threatening. We try our best to stop it, but it can't be contained. We have plumbers and then contractors come and try to fix it, but they say we need to “take it up with the builder.” The drip, drip, drip of the leaky faucet can be heard in the surrounding rooms. Over time the trickle has turned into a small, yet steady stream. Slowly, (over time) it's waters have started to seep into our entire house. Within a year every room has damage.

We find out that the original builder of the house built it knowing this faucet would eventually leak. At first we are outraged. Who does that? Who builds such a lovely thing and yet knows it will have serious, potentially catastrophic damage?

After a year or two of working with professionals, we realized that if we want the faucet to be fixed, we have to take it up with this builder. Not surprisingly, this builder can't be found in traditional ways. It seems that he enjoys letting people search for him. A face to face meeting, where we could shake his hand and see his face isn't possible. This clearly is no ordinary house.

However, eventually we did find out that he left a book for us, to navigate this slowly evolving disaster.

The funny thing is, the book isn't a manual on how to turn off the faucet,

but rather how to work with the leak,

not against it.

We had been prepared for a simple fix. We thought there were would be a three step diagram and the leak would finally stop. We even had a worst case scenario in mind: a major renovation. Then we would be done with this matter and get back to our normal lives. We'd no longer have to constantly be patching walls and reassuring ourselves that “everything is going to be alright.”

I admit that what the book said was unexpected. Instead of three easy steps to a quick fix, it lays out a plan of acceptance? Seriously! It does not tell us how to fix the leak. It doesn't have any information about plumbing or the mechanisms of piping. Even more shocking; it reminds us to not give up hope that the faucet may one day stop leaking. The book even insists upon this. We have to both work with the leak as best as we know how and yet also keep hoping that a remedy will come along.

The book also shows us something we missed in the the first year or so we have been in the house. It says that one day, this leak (as difficult and unruly as it is) could one day become a much needed source of water.

Another year into the ordeal, we began to realize that we are known as the house with the crazy faucet. People began to hear of our “unlucky situation.” They were curious. Who has a faucet that can't be turned off? This doesn't happen in everybody's house.

They wonder what is with this mysterious builder and manual?

One particularly hot summer, the neighborhood had a drought. Water sources were very limited, and people were desperate for just one cool drop of water. Only the yellow house with all the water damage still had water. It seemed their water came from a 

much deeper well.

So they began to come and drink from our leaky faucet. What had once seemed akin to a curse was actually satisfying the real needs of others. It was beautiful to behold, the life giving nature of something that once seemed so devastating.

You see, the faucet brought people in who would have never visited before. It got people asking questions. It built community.

As we were reading the manual one night, it turns out we'd missed where it said the builder long ago put together a clean up crew of sorts. What? A clean up crew? This was weird. Well, we tried to keep an open mind....

It said that this crew would consistently be found on Sunday mornings. That is when they usually get together, but they would not be the plumbers we had expected. Despite that fact, many of them had faced their own leaky faucets, their own catastrophic damage. And even though they can't fix the faucet, they can help sort out the damage. 

And these crew members come alongside of us, on our darkest days and

They gently remind us that the faucet was designed by the builder....

to flood everything.