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In a small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, at the bottom of a slag hill, sat my father’s house. At the turn of the 20th century, his parents walked through its door, young immigrants from Germany with a whimpering infant in arms and another on the way. Barely twenty years old, they were weary already with work and care. The coal mines and the kitchen would claim their every waking hour for the next three decades.
As the years passed, the house filled up with the chaotic sounds of children. Within its three bedrooms, twelve children marked off small territories they could claim as their own. Twelve voices laughed and cried, squabbled and teased. Twelve pairs of feet wore smooth paths in the wooden floors; twelve times each morning the screen door slammed as the children scampered off to school.
There was a constant battle in the house between coal dust and cleanliness. Black dust entered through the back door every evening and settled on the walls, the floor, the furniture. It was immediately scoured and scrubbed away, only to return the next day.
My father’s house still stands in that valley, its siding permanently faded to gray, its shutters hanging askew, missing shingles revealing bare sections of roof. It is occupied now only by echoes of memories.
On a street paved with gold in the heavenly city sits my Father’s house. Throughout the centuries, millions have walked through its shining gates, world-weary no longer. The sounds heard within are their voices, raised eternally in worship. No unclean thing will ever touch its walls, nor will it ever deteriorate or fade.
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