Sunday Stillpoint: The Sacred Space of Home
"Home…had a heart and a soul…it was of us, and we…lived in its grace…We never came home from an absence that its face did not light up and speak out in eloquent welcome--and we could not enter in it unmoved."
--Mark Twain
"Homecaring--carving out a haven for yourself and those dear to you--is a sacred endeavor."
--SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Sarah Ban Breathnach
About a year ago, and through no fault of her own, my sister suddenly found herself homeless.
Oh, she wasn't out in the street or blown away by a hurricane, but when her husband unexpectedly left her, a misogynistic judge handed her whole life over to the man, and then she was laid off…she found herself--for the first time in her life--in rather drastic circumstances. A friend offered her a place to stay, and she took what possessions she had and put them into storage. She fully expected to be back on her feet in a month or two, but an exceedingly tough job market turned a month or two into something like ten months.
Her friend could not have been kinder, but her situation was expected to be temporary, so she was not encouraged to gather together, say, treasured photographs of her two grown sons, prized books, or other favorite things. There wasn't room, and after all, this was not her home. It was shelter until she could get a place and move.
There is something spiritual, something sacred, about taking a space and breathing some of your own soul into it. It doesn't have to be a mansion--just look what people tend to do with job cubicles or high school lockers or college dorm rooms or even military foot lockers.
As an actor, my daughter sometimes has to live the life of a nomad and carry her life around in a suitcase, but no matter where she goes or what she does, she has a few things that are absolutely sacred to her. One is a photograph of her and her brother, clowning around together the weekend she graduated college. She loves that picture and takes it with her everywhere. Another is a snapshot of her dad and me. And Squeakers, her stuffed mouse, a gift to her from her Aunt Kay. Even when Jessica had eye surgery at the age of nine, the doctors allowed Squeakers to accompany her to the operating room. On the plane to London to study for a year--Squeakers was along in the backpack. When she left for New York, Squeakers was with her. Recently, when she had to go into the hospital, her sweet boyfriend came for a visit and, grinning, produced Squeakers from a hidden pocket in his backpack.
Stop most any soldier or Marine on patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan and ask him or her what they've got either in the band of their helmets or tucked down in a pocket or safely snugged away in their rucksack, and I guarantee you there will be something "lucky" that was given to them by a child or girlfriend or good buddy or mom or dad. (One of my favorite pictures from the siege of Fallujah is that of a young Marine in my son's unit with a G.I. Joe doll poking out of his ruck.)
We make a home for ourselves wherever we can, and this is one reason that the tales of Katrina survivors camping out for months at a time with scarcely a pan for cooking to their names tugs at our heartstrings so deeply. It's not the warm bed that matters nearly as much to us as our child's irreplaceable baby book. I've read story after story of people returning to their flooded-out homes, braving the nastiest conditions, including dangerous black mold, just so they can salvage photographs, treasured toys, or family heirlooms. I haven't heard about anybody going to so much trouble to get back expensive things that society usually considers "valuable." They don’t care about those things; they care about things that make "home."
During the time my sister was staying with her friend, she grew very depressed. Granted, she had many reasons to be despondent, and this is not to imply that she was not deeply grateful for the generosity of her friend, (even though she was paying her share of expenses). But she was displaced. In-between. One minute, it seemed, she'd had a beautiful four-bedroom home, a home she loved, where she gardened and painted and cooked and entertained and played with pets and celebrated Christmas with her kids--and the next, she was sleeping on someone else's couch and her kids' baby pictures were stuffed down in a box somewhere, locked away.
They say that "home" is just the people who you love. This is true, of course, don't get me wrong. But even the most modest possessions, arranged lovingly nearby, can give us a sense of place, a sense of self. A monk might live in a spare room with a small cot and a short shelf, period. But on that shelf he may have his favorite Bible, a book of inspirational poems, a journal he keeps, a candle, and a rosary given to him by his mother before she died. Those simple, modest possessions are the whole world to him.
A couple of weeks ago, my sister finally got the wherewithal to move out of her friend's apartment. We'd been talking about her moving closer to me for some time, and she finally did so, finding a perfect little Victorian fixer-upper on the shores of a lake. We call it her gingerbread house.
At long last, her things were taken out of storage, boxes of things she hadn't seen in months. Scrapbooks. Framed prints. Needlepoints. Christmas decorations. Cozy comforters. Candles. Little things her kids had given her. Books. Music. Art supplies.
Nothing luxurious or splendid. Nothing trendy. No supersonic electronic must-haves. Just the things of home.
In his book, Meditations On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life, by Thomas Moore, an author and psychologist who lived for twelve years as a monk, he says, "Every home is a monastery. There, it is to be hoped, we can find solitude, community, beauty, nature, oratory, and food. There the spirit can be nourished, and the body pleased with arts and pleasures."
When my sister came upon her little gingerbread house, it had been neglected, abused, and eventually, abandoned, by a bunch of derelict renters. It looked tired and defeated and sad.
She knew just how it felt. And she knew just what it needed.
Ignoring the more obvious bumps and bruises from renter's scorn, she went to work, hauling off trash, scrubbing and cleaning, sprucing and painting. She prospected dollar-stores and the goodwill for buried treasures--discontinued curtains, overlooked furnishings, festive fabrics. Like an artist with a palette, she took the blank canvas of that old house and filled it with color, warmth, and love.
And in so doing, she transformed herself.
"The ordinary arts we practice every day at home," wrote Thomas Moore, "are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."
To visit that little house by the lake now is to enter a whole other world from the one those renters so callously discarded. It's a place of peace, a warm sanctuary overlooking sun-spangled waters and whispering trees.
And to see my sister now is to see a different person. During her darkest days she resembled someone shellshocked, her eyes like empty rooms. Now she's vivacious and smiling. Even her loyal little cat, Rowdy, seems so much more serene, curled up on her favorite comforter on her old bed in a splash of sunlight.
"Homecaring" is not the same thing as housework. Nobody really likes the nuts and bolts of keeping house. But creating a soft place to fall, a place where strangers can enter and sigh, This feels like home…that is soul-work. It is sacred and it is spiritual. It expands our souls. It is healing. It is worship.
It is finding eternity in the everyday.
--Mark Twain
"Homecaring--carving out a haven for yourself and those dear to you--is a sacred endeavor."
--SIMPLE ABUNDANCE: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Sarah Ban Breathnach
About a year ago, and through no fault of her own, my sister suddenly found herself homeless.
Oh, she wasn't out in the street or blown away by a hurricane, but when her husband unexpectedly left her, a misogynistic judge handed her whole life over to the man, and then she was laid off…she found herself--for the first time in her life--in rather drastic circumstances. A friend offered her a place to stay, and she took what possessions she had and put them into storage. She fully expected to be back on her feet in a month or two, but an exceedingly tough job market turned a month or two into something like ten months.
Her friend could not have been kinder, but her situation was expected to be temporary, so she was not encouraged to gather together, say, treasured photographs of her two grown sons, prized books, or other favorite things. There wasn't room, and after all, this was not her home. It was shelter until she could get a place and move.
There is something spiritual, something sacred, about taking a space and breathing some of your own soul into it. It doesn't have to be a mansion--just look what people tend to do with job cubicles or high school lockers or college dorm rooms or even military foot lockers.
As an actor, my daughter sometimes has to live the life of a nomad and carry her life around in a suitcase, but no matter where she goes or what she does, she has a few things that are absolutely sacred to her. One is a photograph of her and her brother, clowning around together the weekend she graduated college. She loves that picture and takes it with her everywhere. Another is a snapshot of her dad and me. And Squeakers, her stuffed mouse, a gift to her from her Aunt Kay. Even when Jessica had eye surgery at the age of nine, the doctors allowed Squeakers to accompany her to the operating room. On the plane to London to study for a year--Squeakers was along in the backpack. When she left for New York, Squeakers was with her. Recently, when she had to go into the hospital, her sweet boyfriend came for a visit and, grinning, produced Squeakers from a hidden pocket in his backpack.
Stop most any soldier or Marine on patrol in Iraq or Afghanistan and ask him or her what they've got either in the band of their helmets or tucked down in a pocket or safely snugged away in their rucksack, and I guarantee you there will be something "lucky" that was given to them by a child or girlfriend or good buddy or mom or dad. (One of my favorite pictures from the siege of Fallujah is that of a young Marine in my son's unit with a G.I. Joe doll poking out of his ruck.)
We make a home for ourselves wherever we can, and this is one reason that the tales of Katrina survivors camping out for months at a time with scarcely a pan for cooking to their names tugs at our heartstrings so deeply. It's not the warm bed that matters nearly as much to us as our child's irreplaceable baby book. I've read story after story of people returning to their flooded-out homes, braving the nastiest conditions, including dangerous black mold, just so they can salvage photographs, treasured toys, or family heirlooms. I haven't heard about anybody going to so much trouble to get back expensive things that society usually considers "valuable." They don’t care about those things; they care about things that make "home."
During the time my sister was staying with her friend, she grew very depressed. Granted, she had many reasons to be despondent, and this is not to imply that she was not deeply grateful for the generosity of her friend, (even though she was paying her share of expenses). But she was displaced. In-between. One minute, it seemed, she'd had a beautiful four-bedroom home, a home she loved, where she gardened and painted and cooked and entertained and played with pets and celebrated Christmas with her kids--and the next, she was sleeping on someone else's couch and her kids' baby pictures were stuffed down in a box somewhere, locked away.
They say that "home" is just the people who you love. This is true, of course, don't get me wrong. But even the most modest possessions, arranged lovingly nearby, can give us a sense of place, a sense of self. A monk might live in a spare room with a small cot and a short shelf, period. But on that shelf he may have his favorite Bible, a book of inspirational poems, a journal he keeps, a candle, and a rosary given to him by his mother before she died. Those simple, modest possessions are the whole world to him.
A couple of weeks ago, my sister finally got the wherewithal to move out of her friend's apartment. We'd been talking about her moving closer to me for some time, and she finally did so, finding a perfect little Victorian fixer-upper on the shores of a lake. We call it her gingerbread house.
At long last, her things were taken out of storage, boxes of things she hadn't seen in months. Scrapbooks. Framed prints. Needlepoints. Christmas decorations. Cozy comforters. Candles. Little things her kids had given her. Books. Music. Art supplies.
Nothing luxurious or splendid. Nothing trendy. No supersonic electronic must-haves. Just the things of home.
In his book, Meditations On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life, by Thomas Moore, an author and psychologist who lived for twelve years as a monk, he says, "Every home is a monastery. There, it is to be hoped, we can find solitude, community, beauty, nature, oratory, and food. There the spirit can be nourished, and the body pleased with arts and pleasures."
When my sister came upon her little gingerbread house, it had been neglected, abused, and eventually, abandoned, by a bunch of derelict renters. It looked tired and defeated and sad.
She knew just how it felt. And she knew just what it needed.
Ignoring the more obvious bumps and bruises from renter's scorn, she went to work, hauling off trash, scrubbing and cleaning, sprucing and painting. She prospected dollar-stores and the goodwill for buried treasures--discontinued curtains, overlooked furnishings, festive fabrics. Like an artist with a palette, she took the blank canvas of that old house and filled it with color, warmth, and love.
And in so doing, she transformed herself.
"The ordinary arts we practice every day at home," wrote Thomas Moore, "are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest."
To visit that little house by the lake now is to enter a whole other world from the one those renters so callously discarded. It's a place of peace, a warm sanctuary overlooking sun-spangled waters and whispering trees.
And to see my sister now is to see a different person. During her darkest days she resembled someone shellshocked, her eyes like empty rooms. Now she's vivacious and smiling. Even her loyal little cat, Rowdy, seems so much more serene, curled up on her favorite comforter on her old bed in a splash of sunlight.
"Homecaring" is not the same thing as housework. Nobody really likes the nuts and bolts of keeping house. But creating a soft place to fall, a place where strangers can enter and sigh, This feels like home…that is soul-work. It is sacred and it is spiritual. It expands our souls. It is healing. It is worship.
It is finding eternity in the everyday.
posted by Deanie Mills at 9:52 PM
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