Jennifer L. Selig

Call it Home: The House that Humanity Built

Habitat For Humanity

This summer I spent two weeks in Taos, New Mexico, building homes with a Habitat for Humanity Global Village team. I was prepared to write my paper on the experience of transformation that occurs within Habitat, both for the families who receive homes and for the volunteers who build them. However, what caught me off-guard was how much the experience was transcendental, as well as transformative, and it is the former that I focus on in my paper. I conclude that paper with these lines: "Finally, if you ask me at the conclusion of this project what is it about Habitat for Humanity that provides a space for such experiences of transformation and transcendence, what I believe to be the miraculous third where the two become one and are increased by one, I might not respond at all. I might break into tears when I recall the beauty of it all, or I might break into laugher when I recall the joy of it all. If I can gather my voice together at all, I might call it Grace, Love, Unity Consciousness, God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Or I might just call it. . . Home."