I was initially struck by Margaret's discussion, in Chapter 1, of the correlation between Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25: 31-46) and the housewives duties of feeding, clothing, and making a home for our families. I've thought of this myself in meditating on the Works of Mercy, so I thought she might have some other good ideas, as well.
These quotes from Chapter 2, a Place to Live particularly stood out to me as they pertain to the ideas I've had about my own home, which I affectionately refer to as This Blessed Mess.
"When God created the heavens and the earth, he started with chaos and ended with a finely differentiated and beautiful universe. Housework is all about bringing order out of chaos." (Keeping House, p. 38)
"God's creative activity did not issue in a creation that lives on indefinitely with no further involvement on God's part. On the contrary, the very creatureliness of the universe requires the continuing presence and activity of God in sustaining all things in being....Everyone knows that a garden, once planted, does not thrive with out the continued work of the gardener in weeding, mulching, fertilizing, pruning, harvesting, and beginning the cycle again in the new year.
A home is not much different from a garden in this sense. If you don't take care of a house, it devolves....A household has to be tended if it is to flourish and grow. Housework is never "done" in the same sense that gardening is never done or that God's providential involvement in the world is never done. Housework and gardening and God's providence itself are exercises not in futility but in faithfulness - faithfulness to the work itself, to the people whose needs that work serves, and to the God whose own faithfulness invites our faithful response." (pp. 38-39)
"When God comes to the aid of his sad and broken creation, he does so not in some abstract way, simply willing for people to be healed but keeping his distance from the messy reality of their lives. On the contrary, God comes to live among human beings as one of us, including all of our bodily messiness." (p. 39)
"God's world is not as he wished it to be...But God is present and active, even in the midst of continuing imperfection and brokenness. Christians do well to cultivate a similarly mindful, hopeful faithfulness as they engage in the basic, necessary disciplines of feeding, clothing, and housing one another." (p.40)
Six chapters to go...perhaps by the end I'll be better equipped to make this house a home. We've been working so long on making our house...a house. Actually, we're still working on that. It had been neglected for so many years before the elderly gentleman who lived here passed away. Here are some pictures from waaaaaay back, when we came to see our house for the first time. It was coming up for auction and we had to decide how much we were able and willing to bid on a house that had no heating or air conditioning, no septic system, broken windows, a leaky roof, corroded plumbing, original (minimal) wiring, no insulation, rotten porches, and was surrounded by outbuildings that were quite literally falling down. Order out of chaos, indeed.
March 2002
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