Kids make sense of the world through play. Building forts allows children to make and control an environment. Psychologists agree that children develop social skills, dexterity, and cognitive ability by creating these spaces. It is a temporary place to dwell. A secret place where they can be camouflaged in comfort, seclusion, and privacy where they have protection as well as power. It also provides an area for wonder and imagination. 

 

As adults we build homes that will eventually deteriorate for the same reasons children build forts. All are temporary spaces we seek, but eventually have to leave. Not unlike how our bodies are temporary, yet, an earthly home in which the soul dwells. At any age we long to know ourselves and He who dwells within us. 

 

Throughout history, tents/forts have been used by nomadic tribes for portable dwelling spaces and ritual structures as well as military fortifications. 

 

A side note, ironically, is that the homeless population seek temporary places of shelter even if it is only a cardboard box. We all seek shelter from the harshness of the outside world.

 

 

 

Mishkan  - Hebrew word for Tabernacle (tent) meaning dwelling, a place to rest, or to live in, the  portable earthly dwelling place of Yahweh used by the Israelites.