“It’s a rental, but that don’t matter. Kate likes the location and I’m good at fixing things up.”
            His name is Josh, but I call him Joe. He works construction, takes pride in pulling his weight and goes the extra mile for his friends. His “take care of business” attitude reminds me of St. Joseph, the carpenter.
            Josh, aka Joe, and Kate get married next week. Thanks to Joe’s after-hours work, their rented home will boast a refurbished kitchen and refinished wood flooring.
            I know another man who reminds me of St. Joseph. Chuck is the foreman of a construction crew. He recently entered his second marriage and he and his wife rent a place in the country.
           The farm house sat vacant for several years before they moved in. Unlike Josh, Chuck has not repaired the worn structure. Instead, he and his wife have plans for a new house, one with lots of windows—floor-to-ceiling—facing east and west.
           Life has delt Chuck some hard knocks. As a consequence, he views the world with deeper wisdom than most men his age. I believe this is why he desires a house that welcomes light. The kind that sweeps across the plains each morning and evening and comes to rest, like the gaze of God, on his doorstep, his table, the face of his wife.
           I look forward to visiting the homes of these good men. I’ll try not to be jealous. Compared to their rootedness, I’m a long-distance trucker, bedding down in a different motel every night.
           I’m not complaining. Forty years of pastoral assignments have introduced me to many different locales. But rectories seldom provide the amenities common to more permanent residences, such as workshops with welders and band saws, or garages with floor jacks and an engine hoist. (Long have I yearned for a barn and chicken coop!)
           As retirement nears, my thoughts center less on St. Joseph, the worker, and more on St. Joseph, patron of a happy death. At times, I worry that I changed assignments too often and neglected to construct “a house on a rock foundation” in any particular community. My only hope lies in my commitment to the one “who had no place to lay his head.”
           Through it all, St. Joseph remains at my side, pointing beyond the rooftops and skylines of this world to a mansion on the hill, the Father’s House where, I am told, a dwelling place has been prepared for me.
           It is hard to imagine, but I savor the prospect: a porch to paint, a roof of my own. A place—at last—to call my home.