Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.  Philippians 2:15

There is a style of brick-laying here in our town originated by the builder of our little cottage 85 years ago. His name was Carl Able, and he came here in 1937 from Denmark. Carl put a lot of love into this house. No two windows are the same. He acquired these windows from a hotel in Los Angeles that was being demolished and decided to incorporate them into this house. Four of them are leaded glass. Rough-hewn beams grace the open beam ceiling in the living room, and legend has it there could be valuable wood carvings by him hidden on the grounds in the overgrowth of 85 years. It’s rare for a house that is only 750 square feet to receive such attention, but that’s what makes it special. We keep discovering more things about this place we didn’t know.

Like the brickwork. Some people around here call it “crazy brick.” It gets that name because bricks often go every which way and sometimes incorporate other stones and shapes that aren’t even bricks. Like the brick path that leads around the side of the garage to the front of our house. It has two white flagstone slabs among the bricks, one off to the side of the path and one set precisely in the middle. For years, I’ve been aware that the middle flagstone resembles a home plate in baseball (see photo above), but I never thought much beyond that.

Until, at our son Christopher’s rehearsal dinner for his wedding, when his buddies were toasting him and toasting us (because they spent so much time at our house — memories of stepping over sleeping bodies in the morning come to mind), one of them said that if they were hanging out and it was getting late, they always said, “If we can just make it to the Fischer’s we’ll be safe.” It was the greatest compliment we could receive.

After this, I realized that the placement of that flagstone was very significant and that Mr. Able had arranged it. It was no accident. The originator of crazy brick wasn’t all that crazy after all. We believe that he wanted everyone to know that when they started down the path to our house and stepped on that flagstone, that was the sign that they had indeed arrived safe at home.

In the verse above, we glimpse the spiritual warfare we are involved in here in the world — the “crooked and perverse generation,” among whom we appear as lights in the world. We appear as lights because the world is so dark. All the more reason to provide a place in the world where anyone, no matter who they are or what their persuasion, can feel, in coming to your place or ours, that they have arrived safe at home.