It is so interesting thinking about that intersection between our aspirational values and our lives values and how the market tries to help us with the discomfort that gap creates by selling us things... I am part of Sarah Clarcksons book club this year and she made an off hand comment that since she is now in a season that is mostly about little kids & home, she is seeking to fill her imagination with beautiful stories that illustrate what a real, good home looks like in that moment. (Rather than just images of the scholar in the tower, or whatever her imagined life was before) Much better than putting a saying or a fridge magnet, I suppose. Because although idealistic, good stories with characters help give a vision for what our home *could* be and point us in a direction. So it did make me pause and try and think about how I imagine "home" and what is feeding into that. I too often know what I DONT want, and mostly that's reactionary to things around me... but do I have any encouraging guides towards what I do want to see our home become? Not just principles, but real pictures?
I think this distinction between a proposition or description vs. a living picture is really helpful. And really, I don't *hate* these HL mottoes, but during a season when everything feels hard, they just don't give me any power to create what they describe. Scripture is much better, but I also love the idea of being intentional with rich, complex pictures that cast a vision for home. I actually have a whole Pinterest board I made when first married called "Husbandry and Huswifery" that is all pictures of the kind of life I imagined with my husband. It might be time to revisit that. I've actually found the illustrations of Loré Pemberton to be really helpful, too. Her domestic scenes manage to feel "real" and inspiring at the same time.
Insightful. If I’m being truly honest, those signs around my home are the reminder of what our home SHOULD be about. Not pithy platitudes, but rather the reminder to me that the purpose of home is for our sanctuary from an unkind, unrelenting world that tries desperately to distract us from whom we belong. A place where we lay our trauma at the foot of the cross and seek out healing. Where we recognize the physical mess might be more indicative of the mental and emotional chaos that consumes us when we get sideways with our ultimate purpose of knowing God ad being known by Him.
I get that completely, Cara. I think serving as reminders is probably the best function these kinds of mottoes can serve -- and really, I don't hate them (I find them very attractive, in fact). And I love the word "sanctuary" to cast a vision of home. If the home is the "cell" of the church (as our Catholic friends say), then sanctuary is absolutely one of the things home should be.
It is so interesting thinking about that intersection between our aspirational values and our lives values and how the market tries to help us with the discomfort that gap creates by selling us things... I am part of Sarah Clarcksons book club this year and she made an off hand comment that since she is now in a season that is mostly about little kids & home, she is seeking to fill her imagination with beautiful stories that illustrate what a real, good home looks like in that moment. (Rather than just images of the scholar in the tower, or whatever her imagined life was before) Much better than putting a saying or a fridge magnet, I suppose. Because although idealistic, good stories with characters help give a vision for what our home *could* be and point us in a direction. So it did make me pause and try and think about how I imagine "home" and what is feeding into that. I too often know what I DONT want, and mostly that's reactionary to things around me... but do I have any encouraging guides towards what I do want to see our home become? Not just principles, but real pictures?
I think this distinction between a proposition or description vs. a living picture is really helpful. And really, I don't *hate* these HL mottoes, but during a season when everything feels hard, they just don't give me any power to create what they describe. Scripture is much better, but I also love the idea of being intentional with rich, complex pictures that cast a vision for home. I actually have a whole Pinterest board I made when first married called "Husbandry and Huswifery" that is all pictures of the kind of life I imagined with my husband. It might be time to revisit that. I've actually found the illustrations of Loré Pemberton to be really helpful, too. Her domestic scenes manage to feel "real" and inspiring at the same time.
Insightful. If I’m being truly honest, those signs around my home are the reminder of what our home SHOULD be about. Not pithy platitudes, but rather the reminder to me that the purpose of home is for our sanctuary from an unkind, unrelenting world that tries desperately to distract us from whom we belong. A place where we lay our trauma at the foot of the cross and seek out healing. Where we recognize the physical mess might be more indicative of the mental and emotional chaos that consumes us when we get sideways with our ultimate purpose of knowing God ad being known by Him.
I get that completely, Cara. I think serving as reminders is probably the best function these kinds of mottoes can serve -- and really, I don't hate them (I find them very attractive, in fact). And I love the word "sanctuary" to cast a vision of home. If the home is the "cell" of the church (as our Catholic friends say), then sanctuary is absolutely one of the things home should be.