@HomewithDean – Homily 01/29

Yesterday Tina asked me what I think most often stands in the way of truly transforming an ordinary house into something extraordinary. I was thinking about that question again this morning. Wanting to give a more complete answer. What stands in the way of true transformation? For a house? For a life?There’s no question in my mind that the first obstacle is honest self-knowledge. I’m not sure how many people actually give themselves permission to be utterly honest with themselves. Honest about how they really feel. Honest about what they really want. For Tina and I that has become the number one sign of a potentially very difficult project: a client who doesn’t know themself well enough. In the past, when I was a hungry young designer who didn’t want to ever say no to a commission I would be tempted to look past it and just give them what I wanted for them. But that never turns out well. You can’t give someone else their story. They have to know themself well enough to choose their own adventure. You and I have to know ourselves well enough to choose our own adventures.So what stands in the way of true transformation? A lack of self-knowledge to be sure. You certainly can’t plan an adventure if you have no idea where you want to go. But there’s usually something else standing in the way of change. It’s the fear of change. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to call it—the fear of the cost of change. Transformation is change and yes, change is gaining something new, so why shouldn’t we be anything but excited? Well, because change is also letting go. Change always costs us something. Sometimes change costs money. Sometimes change costs time. Sometimes it may cost you a relationship. But always, change will cost you some measure of what is right now predictable, controllable, and safe.So what really stands in the way of true transformation? A lack of self-knowledge and the age old endless tug of war within each of us between love and fear. Love and fear are not opposites, but they feel like it and often act like i