When I was called to my previous church, some gracious folks remodeled the pastor's office. It was a spacious room, and they went all out with the fixtures: Double-pane picture windows with vertical blinds. Plush carpet. Matching walnut credenza, bookshelves, and a desk big enough to land Navy fighter jets. Color-coordinated stapler, tape dispenser, paper clip holder, and in/out trays.

My diplomas hung prominently on the wall, lest anyone wandering in should wonder about my credentials. A few comfortable chairs made it easy for people to sit back, relax, and keep Pastor Ed company.

An office is a nice place to do pastoral care and administration, but an office is no study. Accessibility desecrates a study.

So I went looking for a place to call my own. In our new sanctuary, behind the piano and up the stairs, just off the little room where candidates for baptism changed, I found that undefiled, sacred spot. An old lamp, a folding table, a chair, and an extension cord for the laptop. I was ready to get to work. It was several months before even the secretary learned the whereabouts of my secret hideaway.

There I read. I prayed. I thought and I wondered. I wrote. I preached passages aloud to myself. Sometimes I even cried. Mostly, though, I asked myself a lot of questions.

Scientists need laboratories. Surgeons need operating rooms. Artists need studios. Mechanics need garages, and welders need shops. Preachers need studies. The study is a place to experiment, to grow, to mend and create, all for the medium of the sermon. Here our passion is restored as we soak in God's Word.

All professions have their tools of the trade. Ours are bound stacks of paper, filled with lines of words and few pictures. Preachers acquire books like squirrels hoard nuts, filling our nests even when we have enough to last through the winter. We try to sneak more of them into our homes, even when our spouse has laid down the law.

"What's in that bag?"

"Nothing." Be cool, now. She can't possibly know. Don't look guilty. "Uh, leftovers from lunch."

"There's something else in there. Did you buy another book?"

"Well, there was a sale..." It's sad, really, what we become.

My wife, Susan, won't let me read magazines or newspapers first, because I tear out illustrations and statistics, fodder for the sermon. I've stolen magazines from the doctor's office, justifying my actions by asking, Won't this story accomplish more good in one of my sermons than moldering on this table?

These days, though I have an office at work, my study is at home -- just seven feet wide and ten feet deep. My study is both monastic retreat and prison cell. When we first looked at this house, I could overlook the smell of pet urine, the sight of stained orange carpet, avocado-green wallpaper, and the filthy appliances (that could all be remedied), because I spotted a little area off the family room behind the stairs that looked like holy ground. All I needed to do was build a wall for privacy and some bookshelves.