Peaceful Hearts, Peaceful Homes

Choosing hospitality over a Pinterest home

My husband and I recently bought our first house. As we (literally) put our house in order, we are trying to be intentional about the kind of home we create, especially because of our desire to show hospitality to others. I have been thinking about houses I’ve felt comfortable in over the years, the houses that have felt like home. Their common trait is a sense of peace and well-being, or shalom, rather than anxiety. Not surprisingly, the owners of those houses were usually people who were at peace with themselves, too. Until you are at peace with yourself, it is very difficult to share the peace of hospitality with others. We all know how true this is for the guest; who among us can’t resonate with Nora Ephron’s comment, “I have friends who are nervous hostesses, and it just contaminates the entire mood of the evening”?((Nora Ephron, “About Having People to Dinner,” in The Most of Nora Ephron (New York: Knopf-Random House, 2013), 421.))

As someone who struggles to avoid being that nervous hostess, I know all too well the source of this anxiety. What scares me about homemaking and sharing its results with others is the perceived, but false, idea that I have to make it perfect, because my worth as a person is at stake. If I should make the grievous error of choosing the wrong curtains, I will be forever judged by my guests and my friends. When I give in to this fear, I am no longer showing hospitality; I am attempting to entertain. Karen Ehman defines entertaining as an activity that “puts the emphasis on you and how you can impress others.”((Karen Ehman, A Life That Says Welcome (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell-Baker Publishing Group, 2006), 18.)) Hospitality, on the other hand, is others-focused and is about helping guests feel “refreshed, not impressed.”((Ibid.)) When your goal is to validate yourself, you have no room to give to others. But if you already feel validated, complete, and whole, you and your house will have something to share.

I have noticed a particular way that certain houses reflect a presence of shalom by their owners. While they are beautiful and tasteful, these homes usually aren’t the most “updated” houses. They don’t look like every other house on HGTV. Instead, they are filled with belongings that reflect the owners and the things they love. My maternal grandparents’ house features my grandmother’s original paintings, books on history and the weather (two of my grandfather’s many interests), decorative baskets, and lots of plants. When you walk into their home, you get a sense of who they are: people who are artistic, creative, and inquisitive. You don’t even notice that the wallpaper or appliances aren’t on trend.

I am not alone in observing that the houses of my grandparents’ generation have a special kind of character. Danielle Henderson writes that these older houses have “soul,”((Danielle Henderson, danielleh.tumblr.com, 15 Feb. 2012. (Warning: profanity))) because their owners simply bought things they liked. They didn’t turn to Pinterest to determine their style the way we do today, leading to “identical rooms posted over and over again.” Perhaps our grandparents were less concerned with what the experts thought their homes should look like, or perhaps they didn’t consider constant updates a wise use of money. Whatever the reason, I have consistently noticed a personalized style in theirs and others’ houses where I have experienced shalom. When you know who you are and make peace with it, you no longer need to anxiously concern yourself with what everyone else is doing. Sincerity and stability in matters of style may be more important than originality or trendiness in helping others feel at home. 

Of course, for my husband and me, chasing after this reflection of well-being and peace in our own home will only bear fruit if we are also seeking to be at peace with ourselves, trying to become people worthy of the kind of homes we like. We believe that the only way to have true shalom is to find our hope and identity in Christ, and as we grow in Him, our lives and home should show that peace to others. But I can use this marker of the comfortable home as a checkpoint; if I find myself anxious that no one will pin my house on Pinterest, it’s really time to put my heart, not my house, in order.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user milton.guerrero via Flickr Creative Commons license.

Peaceful Hearts, Peaceful Homes

Choosing hospitality over a Pinterest home

My husband and I recently bought our first house. As we (literally) put our house in order, we are trying to be intentional about the kind of home we create, especially because of our desire to show hospitality to others. I have been thinking about houses I’ve felt comfortable in over the years, the houses that have felt like home. Their common trait is a sense of peace and well-being, or shalom, rather than anxiety. Not surprisingly, the owners of those houses were usually people who were at peace with themselves, too. Until you are at peace with yourself, it is very difficult to share the peace of hospitality with others. We all know how true this is for the guest; who among us can’t resonate with Nora Ephron’s comment, “I have friends who are nervous hostesses, and it just contaminates the entire mood of the evening”?((Nora Ephron, “About Having People to Dinner,” in The Most of Nora Ephron (New York: Knopf-Random House, 2013), 421.))

As someone who struggles to avoid being that nervous hostess, I know all too well the source of this anxiety. What scares me about homemaking and sharing its results with others is the perceived, but false, idea that I have to make it perfect, because my worth as a person is at stake. If I should make the grievous error of choosing the wrong curtains, I will be forever judged by my guests and my friends. When I give in to this fear, I am no longer showing hospitality; I am attempting to entertain. Karen Ehman defines entertaining as an activity that “puts the emphasis on you and how you can impress others.”((Karen Ehman, A Life That Says Welcome (Grand Rapids, MI: Revell-Baker Publishing Group, 2006), 18.)) Hospitality, on the other hand, is others-focused and is about helping guests feel “refreshed, not impressed.”((Ibid.)) When your goal is to validate yourself, you have no room to give to others. But if you already feel validated, complete, and whole, you and your house will have something to share.

I have noticed a particular way that certain houses reflect a presence of shalom by their owners. While they are beautiful and tasteful, these homes usually aren’t the most “updated” houses. They don’t look like every other house on HGTV. Instead, they are filled with belongings that reflect the owners and the things they love. My maternal grandparents’ house features my grandmother’s original paintings, books on history and the weather (two of my grandfather’s many interests), decorative baskets, and lots of plants. When you walk into their home, you get a sense of who they are: people who are artistic, creative, and inquisitive. You don’t even notice that the wallpaper or appliances aren’t on trend.

I am not alone in observing that the houses of my grandparents’ generation have a special kind of character. Danielle Henderson writes that these older houses have “soul,”((Danielle Henderson, danielleh.tumblr.com, 15 Feb. 2012. (Warning: profanity))) because their owners simply bought things they liked. They didn’t turn to Pinterest to determine their style the way we do today, leading to “identical rooms posted over and over again.” Perhaps our grandparents were less concerned with what the experts thought their homes should look like, or perhaps they didn’t consider constant updates a wise use of money. Whatever the reason, I have consistently noticed a personalized style in theirs and others’ houses where I have experienced shalom. When you know who you are and make peace with it, you no longer need to anxiously concern yourself with what everyone else is doing. Sincerity and stability in matters of style may be more important than originality or trendiness in helping others feel at home. 

Of course, for my husband and me, chasing after this reflection of well-being and peace in our own home will only bear fruit if we are also seeking to be at peace with ourselves, trying to become people worthy of the kind of homes we like. We believe that the only way to have true shalom is to find our hope and identity in Christ, and as we grow in Him, our lives and home should show that peace to others. But I can use this marker of the comfortable home as a checkpoint; if I find myself anxious that no one will pin my house on Pinterest, it’s really time to put my heart, not my house, in order.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user milton.guerrero via Flickr Creative Commons license.

How Belonging Creates Home

Longing is foundational

During my college years, I often found myself using a phrase that seemed contradictory: "I'm going home Friday, but don't worry, I'll be back home on Sunday night." It seemed strange to use the same word for two different places – my dorm and my parents' house – but my brain, in its word choice, recognized that I had come to feel that I belonged in both places. By contrast, one of my friends during this time lived in a large house of girls, but it never felt like home to her. She told me it was more like sharing space than living together. What is it, then, that defines and characterizes a "home?" A true home requires belonging - both people to belong with and a place to belong to.

Breaking down the word belong reveals the meaning of home.

To BE - meaning to find identity in, to derive existence from.

And LONG - to have a longing or desire.

The origin of belong is the old English word gelang, meaning "at hand, together with." So to belong is to be together, derive identity from one another, and ardently desire one another. To belong is to be welcomed, to know you are meant to be where you are. There is also a physical dimension of place. The dictionary says a person belongs when they "fit in a specified place or environment." A home gives this phenomenon of belonging the most permanence in the built environment. One friend described it as "love coming up through the floorboards." A country song describes it as "The House that Built Me."((Miranda Lambert "The House that Built Me." Sony Music. )) Or simply, "There's no place like home."

But this vision of home and belonging is fraught with the difficulties of a fallen world. What if you don't feel loved at home? What if you don't have time to be together? What if you don't desire to be together at all?

Feeling unloved by your family wrecks a sense of belonging and thus wrecks an experience of home. Those who live together need to practice genuine appreciation for one another. I recommend The Life Model,((http://www.joystartshere.com/ provides more information about Life Model Works)) an international healing organization, for learning what practical skills can foster this sense of belonging that comes from wanting to be together. These include things like being tender to one another's weaknesses, becoming attuned in empathy, allowing uniqueness, and kindly sharpening each other. Sometimes we are blocked by our own past, stress, fatigue, or insecurity. We have to make an active effort to overcome these obstacles. But if your family simply won't give you identity, you have to go elsewhere for home. It may be time to "leave home" but "receive a hundred times as [many homes] in this present age."((Mark 10:29-30: "Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.)) Home is not relegated to the nuclear family unit you were born into.

Even in homes that do experience loving family relationships, there are many times in which the members may not have the time or desire to be together. Time seems to be constantly slipping by, impossible to find. For every task technology has simplified, modern culture has added another. With washing machines came more clothes; with cars came longer distances. People are spread out in different places for work, errands and hobbies, and at home, distractions from email and media entertainment abound. We begin to settle for less, contenting ourselves with rare moments together, thinking that a little quality time is enough. But quality time cannot exist apart from quantity time. In quantity is developed the foundation from which quality time can unexpectedly and joyously spring. There is, of course, a place for alone time, but a family cannot know what it means to be alone if they are never together. The key is to make common tasks communal: chores, TV shows, room sharing, cooking, and homework. You cannot belong if there is no time spent belonging.

But what if, after all, being alone is far more attractive to you because being together has been disastrous for your family? Without longing, belonging is not possible. So how do we create an environment where longing for one another can become reality? It starts with acknowledging that in the very act of not wanting to be together, we are still longing, feeling deeply that we wish the situation was different. In certain situations, once you realize this longing for restoration, you can begin to long for the person, regardless of whether they deserve it, as unconditional longing. Over time, your house could become a home once again, when mutual longing returns.

This restoration of longing happens in the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast.(("Beauty and the Beast" is a musical based on the 1991 Disney Movie of the same title, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice)) Trapped in the castle, Belle sings, "Is this home? Never dreamed that a home could be dark and cold…this tragic place…this empty space…home's a lie." But things change as Belle starts to long not simply for her own freedom, but now for the good of the Beast, as flawed and ugly as he is. She teaches him to read, starts dining with him, and nurses his wounds. She looks for ways to bring out his strengths and encourage the good in him. Suddenly, she finds that there is "something there that wasn't there before" as they begin to long for one another. In the final song she sings, "I finally see, I found home, you're my home, stay with me…I love you." And in the midst of this massive change, everyone around them in the castle becomes human again, finding their belonging there as well. Longing is awakened when one person transcends dark circumstances to reach out and seek the other's good.

The difficulties of broken homes, relational wounding, and cultural busyness have interfered with the deep longing for one another that home requires. Confronting those barriers means appreciating one another and then finding and protecting a place where you are often together. There will be no being and no longing when there is no place where it occurs. Yet where there is belonging, that place will be home.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user kate wares via Flickr Creative Commons license.

How Belonging Creates Home

Longing is foundational

During my college years, I often found myself using a phrase that seemed contradictory: "I'm going home Friday, but don't worry, I'll be back home on Sunday night." It seemed strange to use the same word for two different places – my dorm and my parents' house – but my brain, in its word choice, recognized that I had come to feel that I belonged in both places. By contrast, one of my friends during this time lived in a large house of girls, but it never felt like home to her. She told me it was more like sharing space than living together. What is it, then, that defines and characterizes a "home?" A true home requires belonging - both people to belong with and a place to belong to.

Breaking down the word belong reveals the meaning of home.

To BE - meaning to find identity in, to derive existence from.

And LONG - to have a longing or desire.

The origin of belong is the old English word gelang, meaning "at hand, together with." So to belong is to be together, derive identity from one another, and ardently desire one another. To belong is to be welcomed, to know you are meant to be where you are. There is also a physical dimension of place. The dictionary says a person belongs when they "fit in a specified place or environment." A home gives this phenomenon of belonging the most permanence in the built environment. One friend described it as "love coming up through the floorboards." A country song describes it as "The House that Built Me."((Miranda Lambert "The House that Built Me." Sony Music. )) Or simply, "There's no place like home."

But this vision of home and belonging is fraught with the difficulties of a fallen world. What if you don't feel loved at home? What if you don't have time to be together? What if you don't desire to be together at all?

Feeling unloved by your family wrecks a sense of belonging and thus wrecks an experience of home. Those who live together need to practice genuine appreciation for one another. I recommend The Life Model,((http://www.joystartshere.com/ provides more information about Life Model Works)) an international healing organization, for learning what practical skills can foster this sense of belonging that comes from wanting to be together. These include things like being tender to one another's weaknesses, becoming attuned in empathy, allowing uniqueness, and kindly sharpening each other. Sometimes we are blocked by our own past, stress, fatigue, or insecurity. We have to make an active effort to overcome these obstacles. But if your family simply won't give you identity, you have to go elsewhere for home. It may be time to "leave home" but "receive a hundred times as [many homes] in this present age."((Mark 10:29-30: "Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.)) Home is not relegated to the nuclear family unit you were born into.

Even in homes that do experience loving family relationships, there are many times in which the members may not have the time or desire to be together. Time seems to be constantly slipping by, impossible to find. For every task technology has simplified, modern culture has added another. With washing machines came more clothes; with cars came longer distances. People are spread out in different places for work, errands and hobbies, and at home, distractions from email and media entertainment abound. We begin to settle for less, contenting ourselves with rare moments together, thinking that a little quality time is enough. But quality time cannot exist apart from quantity time. In quantity is developed the foundation from which quality time can unexpectedly and joyously spring. There is, of course, a place for alone time, but a family cannot know what it means to be alone if they are never together. The key is to make common tasks communal: chores, TV shows, room sharing, cooking, and homework. You cannot belong if there is no time spent belonging.

But what if, after all, being alone is far more attractive to you because being together has been disastrous for your family? Without longing, belonging is not possible. So how do we create an environment where longing for one another can become reality? It starts with acknowledging that in the very act of not wanting to be together, we are still longing, feeling deeply that we wish the situation was different. In certain situations, once you realize this longing for restoration, you can begin to long for the person, regardless of whether they deserve it, as unconditional longing. Over time, your house could become a home once again, when mutual longing returns.

This restoration of longing happens in the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast.(("Beauty and the Beast" is a musical based on the 1991 Disney Movie of the same title, with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice)) Trapped in the castle, Belle sings, "Is this home? Never dreamed that a home could be dark and cold…this tragic place…this empty space…home's a lie." But things change as Belle starts to long not simply for her own freedom, but now for the good of the Beast, as flawed and ugly as he is. She teaches him to read, starts dining with him, and nurses his wounds. She looks for ways to bring out his strengths and encourage the good in him. Suddenly, she finds that there is "something there that wasn't there before" as they begin to long for one another. In the final song she sings, "I finally see, I found home, you're my home, stay with me…I love you." And in the midst of this massive change, everyone around them in the castle becomes human again, finding their belonging there as well. Longing is awakened when one person transcends dark circumstances to reach out and seek the other's good.

The difficulties of broken homes, relational wounding, and cultural busyness have interfered with the deep longing for one another that home requires. Confronting those barriers means appreciating one another and then finding and protecting a place where you are often together. There will be no being and no longing when there is no place where it occurs. Yet where there is belonging, that place will be home.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user kate wares via Flickr Creative Commons license.

Rhythms of Home and Hearth

How our home routines change us

They say home is where the heart is.

So during my past four years of living in eight cities, I've left pieces of my heart in a lot of different places. But it was no odd happenstance or random chance that allowed me to quickly find peace in each home away from home. Rather, the familiarity was cultivated through the familiar habits that are practiced in every place we can truly call "home." As Tolstoy put it in the famous opening line of Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In other words, an unhappy family never discovers nor puts into practice the natural rhythms of each day, week, and year that form a foundation for peace of mind, fruitful relationships, and a prospering community.

My favorite way to think about the Home closely parallels an observation that Prosper of Aquitaine made about the early Christian Church:

Lex orandi, Lex credendi, Lex vivendi

Translation: "The way you worship becomes the way you believe, which shapes the way you live." A common misconception in our modern world is that our daily habits – waking, washing, cooking, eating, working, playing, loving, and praying – are mere reflections of our fixed, pre-conceived notions... just visible manifestations of our unseen and unchanging beliefs. If we choose to believe instead that each daily routine actually gives shape to our thoughts, habits, and virtues, then a measure of gravity is added to our thoughtless comings and goings. The way we choose to ignore or internalize this rhythmic mindset has profound implications for the types of people we will become.

Few of us are forced to think about this difference until we leave our first home. It's usually not until we leave relatives to live with friends, classmates, or strangers that our traditional understanding of "home" falls apart, and we begin to understand that our experiences in this tight-knit community are powerful enough to shape our relationships, habits, attitudes, and identity.

This is one of the most overlooked (and unprepared for) realities of college life. Even the most capable young adults become overwhelmed when confronted with a plethora of rhythms they will continue or begin anew. Teenagers are suddenly forced to compromise their own habits to accommodate the rhythms of strangers, for better or worse.

Thankfully, these new rhythms have the potential to be just as productive and formative as the old. Living with new people in new places requires humility, forbearance, and love, if those people hope to establish a sense of home. It does not take long to realize that our series of small, interpersonal choices and actions are not just reflective, but formative of the relationships we will have with everyone living under the same roof. This is precisely why it helps to have intentional rhythms that only change slowly (if at all).

Key to a healthy rhythm of home and hearth is a routine recognition of God. A book of common prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of a conscientious homemaker. I wake up every morning and have the opportunity to confess my sins, to ask for aid in loving others, and to praise the Almighty for blessing me with another day. I go to work every day and have the opportunity to make peace or sow discord with my colleagues. I come home from work every evening, make dinner, and have the opportunity to engage in pleasant conversation around the fireplace, or withdraw into isolation: Netflix on the couch, talking on the phone outside, or going to bed early in my room.

The frame of mind I begin the day in will likely guide my actions for the rest of it, so it is both comforting and helpful to greet the rising of the sun with this prayer:

"Father God, we implore thy grace and protection for the ensuing day. Keep us temperate in all things, and diligent in our several callings. Grant us patience under our afflictions. Give us grace to be just and upright in all our dealings; quiet and peaceable; full of compassion; and ready to do good to all men, according to our abilities and opportunities. Direct us in all our ways. Defend us from all dangers and adversities; and be graciously pleased to take us, and all who are dear to us, under thy fatherly care and protection. These things, and whatever else thou shalt see to be necessary and convenient to us, we humbly beg, through the merits and mediation of thy Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen."

So if Home truly is where the Heart is, consider resting yours here as well.

Start now. Find or create a daily routine: a simple habit, a simple prayer, a simple yoga pose. Use it to remind yourself that with every sunrise comes a new opportunity. An opportunity to eat, play, and go about your day with friends and family in peace, rather than stress; in joy, rather than sadness; and in love, rather than conflict.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user nadja_robot via Flickr Creative Commons license.

Rhythms of Home and Hearth

How our home routines change us

They say home is where the heart is.

So during my past four years of living in eight cities, I've left pieces of my heart in a lot of different places. But it was no odd happenstance or random chance that allowed me to quickly find peace in each home away from home. Rather, the familiarity was cultivated through the familiar habits that are practiced in every place we can truly call "home." As Tolstoy put it in the famous opening line of Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In other words, an unhappy family never discovers nor puts into practice the natural rhythms of each day, week, and year that form a foundation for peace of mind, fruitful relationships, and a prospering community.

My favorite way to think about the Home closely parallels an observation that Prosper of Aquitaine made about the early Christian Church:

Lex orandi, Lex credendi, Lex vivendi

Translation: "The way you worship becomes the way you believe, which shapes the way you live." A common misconception in our modern world is that our daily habits – waking, washing, cooking, eating, working, playing, loving, and praying – are mere reflections of our fixed, pre-conceived notions... just visible manifestations of our unseen and unchanging beliefs. If we choose to believe instead that each daily routine actually gives shape to our thoughts, habits, and virtues, then a measure of gravity is added to our thoughtless comings and goings. The way we choose to ignore or internalize this rhythmic mindset has profound implications for the types of people we will become.

Few of us are forced to think about this difference until we leave our first home. It's usually not until we leave relatives to live with friends, classmates, or strangers that our traditional understanding of "home" falls apart, and we begin to understand that our experiences in this tight-knit community are powerful enough to shape our relationships, habits, attitudes, and identity.

This is one of the most overlooked (and unprepared for) realities of college life. Even the most capable young adults become overwhelmed when confronted with a plethora of rhythms they will continue or begin anew. Teenagers are suddenly forced to compromise their own habits to accommodate the rhythms of strangers, for better or worse.

Thankfully, these new rhythms have the potential to be just as productive and formative as the old. Living with new people in new places requires humility, forbearance, and love, if those people hope to establish a sense of home. It does not take long to realize that our series of small, interpersonal choices and actions are not just reflective, but formative of the relationships we will have with everyone living under the same roof. This is precisely why it helps to have intentional rhythms that only change slowly (if at all).

Key to a healthy rhythm of home and hearth is a routine recognition of God. A book of common prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of a conscientious homemaker. I wake up every morning and have the opportunity to confess my sins, to ask for aid in loving others, and to praise the Almighty for blessing me with another day. I go to work every day and have the opportunity to make peace or sow discord with my colleagues. I come home from work every evening, make dinner, and have the opportunity to engage in pleasant conversation around the fireplace, or withdraw into isolation: Netflix on the couch, talking on the phone outside, or going to bed early in my room.

The frame of mind I begin the day in will likely guide my actions for the rest of it, so it is both comforting and helpful to greet the rising of the sun with this prayer:

"Father God, we implore thy grace and protection for the ensuing day. Keep us temperate in all things, and diligent in our several callings. Grant us patience under our afflictions. Give us grace to be just and upright in all our dealings; quiet and peaceable; full of compassion; and ready to do good to all men, according to our abilities and opportunities. Direct us in all our ways. Defend us from all dangers and adversities; and be graciously pleased to take us, and all who are dear to us, under thy fatherly care and protection. These things, and whatever else thou shalt see to be necessary and convenient to us, we humbly beg, through the merits and mediation of thy Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Amen."

So if Home truly is where the Heart is, consider resting yours here as well.

Start now. Find or create a daily routine: a simple habit, a simple prayer, a simple yoga pose. Use it to remind yourself that with every sunrise comes a new opportunity. An opportunity to eat, play, and go about your day with friends and family in peace, rather than stress; in joy, rather than sadness; and in love, rather than conflict.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user nadja_robot via Flickr Creative Commons license.

What Does Family Mean to the Christian?

How do we understand Jesus' words on hating your family?

In the section of my Bible titled "The Cost of Discipleship," Jesus says that it is impossible to follow him without hating "father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself" (Luke 14:26 NRSV). With these words, Jesus Christ relativized family ties for all those who follow him. Those old ties–parent, child, sibling–no longer have any claim unless that claim is to "seek first the kingdom of God." This alone can explain Jesus' harsh words to that man whose father had died: "Let the dead bury their own dead!" (Luke 9:60). A Christian family, then, is one that operates in the pattern of Christ's own self-denial and faithful obedience to God. To hate the family means to reject the family as an end in itself, instead rendering the family as a means for bringing about the divine will for the world.

In this task of self-denial and service, Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas writes, the family "will require a community that has a clear sense of itself and its mission and the place of the family within that mission."((Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame, 1981), 174.)) The family is always tempted towards its own hopes, needs and desires–as are all groups in isolation. Tempted as it is toward self-sufficiency and interiority, the family lacks a strong understanding of its place within God's mission. In order to learn its place and purpose, the family requires the witness of outsiders; the suffering and neediness of the outsider interrupts the family's tendencies toward self-determination and insularity, reconstituting the family into the shape of the cross.

The need for this kind of witness takes on flesh in the life of Wesley Hill, whose pains as a single man point to a wider cultural crisis. In his theological memoir, Washed and Waiting, Hill quotes a moving passage from a letter written by W. H. Auden:

There are days when the knowledge that there will never be a place which I can call home, that there will never be a person with whom I shall be one flesh, seems more than I can bear, and if it wasn't for you, and a few–how few–like you, I don't think I could. – Letter to Elizabeth Meyer

As a gay Christian who believes his faithfulness to God demands that he remain single, Hill can claim Auden's heartache as his own–he too is shorn of home and the intimacy of marriage. Washed and Waiting is a book of groaning and longing for the end of loneliness.

In an article published in Christianity Today, Hill writes about this longing in further detail:

I need people who know what time my plane lands, who will worry about me when I don't show up when I say I will. I need people I can call and tell about that funny thing that happened in the hallway after class. I need to know that, come hell or high water, a few people will stay with me, loving me in spite of my faults and caring for me when I'm down. More, I need people for whom I can care. As a friend of mine put it, you want someone for whom you can make soup when she's sick, not just someone who will make soup for you when you're sick.((Wesley Hill, "Why Can't Men Be Friends?," Christianity Today, September 16, 2014, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september/why-cant-men-be-friends-wesley-hill-friendship.html))

Despite the growing prevalence of people like Hill longing for community, Americans are choosing more and more to live alone. In the past forty years, the percentage of one-person households has increased 10%, now accounting for more than one-fourth of all homes in the United States.((Jonathan Vespa, Jamie M. Lewis, and Rose M. Kreider, "America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2012," August 2013, http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf)) This statistic signifies the erosion of one institution that could help meet these desires: the family or communal home. But instead, the household has and continues to become an afterthought, worthwhile only for the personal convenience it might provide, rather than a site to form community, painful as it may be. It seems easier to live alone than risk having messy, annoying, prudish, or nosy roommates. Culturally, we seem to be moving farther afield from the vision for community hoped for by Hill.

Wesley Hill and others who are single are not the only ones in need of close community to remind them of who they are and how they ought to live. As Christians, we must assume that God really meant what He said in Genesis 2.18: "it is not good that the man should be alone." Those who invoke the reclusive figures of Christ and the Desert Fathers against this point stand on sinking sand. While Jesus withdrew from his twelve disciples to pray alone on occasion, he always returned to them. And while the church has always had its hermit saints, it is notable that the greatest of these, St. Anthony, was one of the first Christians to establish monasteries for monks to live in and encourage one another towards greater holiness.

While there can be a time for retreat from community, it is fundamentally within community that we learn who we are. On the most basic level, relationship titles like "brother," "daughter," "father," and "mother" give us a script telling us who we are and how we are to live together. Because I am the grandson of a man who, due to Alzheimer's, cannot remember his way to the bathroom, I know I have a duty to help him get there. My relationship to my grandfather helps situate me in relation to the world. We need others around us to teach us the true story about how the world is if we are to live well.((See Stanley Hauerwas' essay ‘A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down', in A Community of Character for a good illustration of the importance of community in understanding the world rightly.))

Since home is where we begin every morning and end every night, it would be naïve to think that it isn't the primary place where we learn how to make sense of things. Yet there are many people like Hill who will never have a biological family of their own and still need the stability of a family household. What are really needed are people who would take seriously the words of Christ in Mark 3.35: "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Too often the significance of these words is downplayed, and family structures remain unquestioned, even in Christian communities. The imitation of Christ ought to lead faithful families to invite outsiders in as brothers and sisters. What is needed is for families to say to singles, "Make yourself at home", and truly mean it.

In the same Christianity Today article mentioned previously, Wesley Hill writes of a moment that comes close to this kind of welcome. Jono, a friend of Hill's, asked Hill to attend his daughter Callie's baptism and to become her godfather. Hill agreed and several weeks later stood with Jono's family as they handed Callie to the priest to be baptized. After baptizing Callie, the priest said "Parents and godparents, the church receives Callie with joy."((Hill, "Why Can't Men Be Friends?")) Through this baptism, Hill's relationship to Callie and Jono was sealed, reflecting, if only in part, that new community established in Christ that relativizes all other ties.

We have been granted security and eternal life, not through the blood of our children but through the blood of the Lamb. When families heed and live out this witness, then and only then can they be called "Christian." The family that has died to self is the family that has surrendered its very stability and intimacy to those beyond it. Though this surrender may take manifold forms, the family that welcomes singles into their midst is surely enacting a parable of the kingdom of God before the eyes of the world.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user lancerrevolution via Flickr Creative Commons license.

What Does Family Mean to the Christian?

How do we understand Jesus' words on hating your family?

In the section of my Bible titled "The Cost of Discipleship," Jesus says that it is impossible to follow him without hating "father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself" (Luke 14:26 NRSV). With these words, Jesus Christ relativized family ties for all those who follow him. Those old ties–parent, child, sibling–no longer have any claim unless that claim is to "seek first the kingdom of God." This alone can explain Jesus' harsh words to that man whose father had died: "Let the dead bury their own dead!" (Luke 9:60). A Christian family, then, is one that operates in the pattern of Christ's own self-denial and faithful obedience to God. To hate the family means to reject the family as an end in itself, instead rendering the family as a means for bringing about the divine will for the world.

In this task of self-denial and service, Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas writes, the family "will require a community that has a clear sense of itself and its mission and the place of the family within that mission."((Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame, 1981), 174.)) The family is always tempted towards its own hopes, needs and desires–as are all groups in isolation. Tempted as it is toward self-sufficiency and interiority, the family lacks a strong understanding of its place within God's mission. In order to learn its place and purpose, the family requires the witness of outsiders; the suffering and neediness of the outsider interrupts the family's tendencies toward self-determination and insularity, reconstituting the family into the shape of the cross.

The need for this kind of witness takes on flesh in the life of Wesley Hill, whose pains as a single man point to a wider cultural crisis. In his theological memoir, Washed and Waiting, Hill quotes a moving passage from a letter written by W. H. Auden:

There are days when the knowledge that there will never be a place which I can call home, that there will never be a person with whom I shall be one flesh, seems more than I can bear, and if it wasn't for you, and a few–how few–like you, I don't think I could. – Letter to Elizabeth Meyer

As a gay Christian who believes his faithfulness to God demands that he remain single, Hill can claim Auden's heartache as his own–he too is shorn of home and the intimacy of marriage. Washed and Waiting is a book of groaning and longing for the end of loneliness.

In an article published in Christianity Today, Hill writes about this longing in further detail:

I need people who know what time my plane lands, who will worry about me when I don't show up when I say I will. I need people I can call and tell about that funny thing that happened in the hallway after class. I need to know that, come hell or high water, a few people will stay with me, loving me in spite of my faults and caring for me when I'm down. More, I need people for whom I can care. As a friend of mine put it, you want someone for whom you can make soup when she's sick, not just someone who will make soup for you when you're sick.((Wesley Hill, "Why Can't Men Be Friends?," Christianity Today, September 16, 2014, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september/why-cant-men-be-friends-wesley-hill-friendship.html))

Despite the growing prevalence of people like Hill longing for community, Americans are choosing more and more to live alone. In the past forty years, the percentage of one-person households has increased 10%, now accounting for more than one-fourth of all homes in the United States.((Jonathan Vespa, Jamie M. Lewis, and Rose M. Kreider, "America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2012," August 2013, http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf)) This statistic signifies the erosion of one institution that could help meet these desires: the family or communal home. But instead, the household has and continues to become an afterthought, worthwhile only for the personal convenience it might provide, rather than a site to form community, painful as it may be. It seems easier to live alone than risk having messy, annoying, prudish, or nosy roommates. Culturally, we seem to be moving farther afield from the vision for community hoped for by Hill.

Wesley Hill and others who are single are not the only ones in need of close community to remind them of who they are and how they ought to live. As Christians, we must assume that God really meant what He said in Genesis 2.18: "it is not good that the man should be alone." Those who invoke the reclusive figures of Christ and the Desert Fathers against this point stand on sinking sand. While Jesus withdrew from his twelve disciples to pray alone on occasion, he always returned to them. And while the church has always had its hermit saints, it is notable that the greatest of these, St. Anthony, was one of the first Christians to establish monasteries for monks to live in and encourage one another towards greater holiness.

While there can be a time for retreat from community, it is fundamentally within community that we learn who we are. On the most basic level, relationship titles like "brother," "daughter," "father," and "mother" give us a script telling us who we are and how we are to live together. Because I am the grandson of a man who, due to Alzheimer's, cannot remember his way to the bathroom, I know I have a duty to help him get there. My relationship to my grandfather helps situate me in relation to the world. We need others around us to teach us the true story about how the world is if we are to live well.((See Stanley Hauerwas' essay ‘A Story-Formed Community: Reflections on Watership Down', in A Community of Character for a good illustration of the importance of community in understanding the world rightly.))

Since home is where we begin every morning and end every night, it would be naïve to think that it isn't the primary place where we learn how to make sense of things. Yet there are many people like Hill who will never have a biological family of their own and still need the stability of a family household. What are really needed are people who would take seriously the words of Christ in Mark 3.35: "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Too often the significance of these words is downplayed, and family structures remain unquestioned, even in Christian communities. The imitation of Christ ought to lead faithful families to invite outsiders in as brothers and sisters. What is needed is for families to say to singles, "Make yourself at home", and truly mean it.

In the same Christianity Today article mentioned previously, Wesley Hill writes of a moment that comes close to this kind of welcome. Jono, a friend of Hill's, asked Hill to attend his daughter Callie's baptism and to become her godfather. Hill agreed and several weeks later stood with Jono's family as they handed Callie to the priest to be baptized. After baptizing Callie, the priest said "Parents and godparents, the church receives Callie with joy."((Hill, "Why Can't Men Be Friends?")) Through this baptism, Hill's relationship to Callie and Jono was sealed, reflecting, if only in part, that new community established in Christ that relativizes all other ties.

We have been granted security and eternal life, not through the blood of our children but through the blood of the Lamb. When families heed and live out this witness, then and only then can they be called "Christian." The family that has died to self is the family that has surrendered its very stability and intimacy to those beyond it. Though this surrender may take manifold forms, the family that welcomes singles into their midst is surely enacting a parable of the kingdom of God before the eyes of the world.

What do you think of this article?

Write a short response. It'll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we'll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute's network.

Image above from Flickr user lancerrevolution via Flickr Creative Commons license.

Invitation to Our Next Symposium: On Home

Please Come and Share Your Thoughts on Home

“There’s no place like home.” There is especially no place like a well-ordered, welcoming, loving home. Domestic tranquility is one of the most beautiful things in the world. But as Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “It is hard to make a home.” Homes of the hospitable sort do not just pop out of the ground. They have to be nurtured and maintained with patience and sacrifices that often aren't noticed or appreciated. This work must be done while contending with any number of foes that do damage to home life: busyness (is it a home if no one is ever there?), the transitoriness of modern life, unemployment, workaholism, poverty, illness, divorce, and abuse, along with the garden-variety sinful cussedness that makes us all so difficult to live with.  This symposium will investigate what makes homes beautiful, and how to create them in a world filled with broken people who all need a place to call home.

Some Possible Themes:

1. What significance does the physical space in a home have? What does it say about us? How does it shape us? Homes in the '90s emphasized bedrooms because of the private lives each member of the house would conduct within them; the "master oasis" has become the largest room in today's houses because the defeated parents expect to need to flee from the kids - on the other hand, the popularity of "open concept" main floors speaks to a renewed desire for shared spaces and hospitality...or does it?

2. Our ideas of home have become enmeshed with the ideal of the nuclear family. What about people who do not fit neatly into that picture, like the elderly, orphans, single adults, adults with disabilities? And what about the homeless? And what do you do when your current living situation is nothing like the home you longed for?

3. When many homes do not fit the model of a traditional family, how should the culture as a whole respond? What forms of support should be given to struggling single parents, and who should provide that support? How do we provide for the rising medical costs of a top-heavy aging population in our own country? What are the long-term implications of the low birth rates of countries like Russia and Japan?

4. The idea of Home is a popular theme in movies and literature. What depictions of home have taught you or inspired you?

5. The people you live with, particularly your family, are supposed to be the people you love most. But at times we treat our families more poorly than we would treat strangers. What are the problems that Life Together creates, and how can the familiarity of home life breed love instead of contempt?

We are seeking submissions for our upcoming symposium, which aims to explore questions like these. Contributors are encouraged to choose a specific question that can be adequately covered in the space allotted–overly broad pieces are unlikely to be accepted.

For examples of the kind of style and substance we are looking for, you can read up on our previous symposiums, on the Christian Imagination and Modern Conservatism.

Dates/deadlines/details:

Soliciting several articles in the 400-800 word range. Soliciting 1-3 articles in the 800-1600 word range. Intended audience: John Jay alumni-level readership.  Author can assume the readership is college-educated and has an active, serious interest in political, cultural, and religious topics, but is not necessarily active in academia. Tone: Thoughtful, informed, and with appropriate citations, but accessible and concise (not an academic journal). Internet-friendly. Content: Light on summarizing others’ content; heavy on the author’s (hopefully fresh) argument. Concepts due February 21. If approved, first drafts will be due March 14, with the symposium to begin running April 6.

To submit an article proposal:

Submit your idea in a few words (ideally with a link to a writing sample) to editor Zachary Gappa at zgappa@centerforajustsociety.org

Who do you know who should write for this?

Reshaping the Marriage Debate

Applying Insights from Brain Science and Narrative Theory to Sharpen Marriage Advocacy

This primer is for anyone involved in pro-marriage advocacy: nonprofits, pastors, churches, and academics.

This is your problem: you’ve been framed.

Only seniors and aging baby boomers strongly support preserving the historic meaning of marriage. In 20 years, they will be gone. Younger Americans—particularly “Millennials” under age 35—have shifted decidedly in favor of abolishing marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. This generation will shape America to 2050 and beyond.

For this generation, the arguments of marriage revisionists have not been countered. Better arguments from natural law, while necessary and helpful, are unlikely to turn the tide of opinion because many people are not convinced rationally in the first place: television, songs, friends, and their own experiences shape their understanding of love and marriage. In short, we are shaped by unconscious influences, social and personal narratives, and emotion.

This paper explores findings from a growing body of research from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and narrative theory to inform how to take a more sophisticated approach to communicating in the marriage debate. It offers new opportunities for understanding, developing, and using persuasion informed by cognitive science and narrative theory to advance traditional marriage and counter marriage revisionism.

The point of this primer is simple: communication is key to reframing the debate, and key to a healthy marriage culture.

Download the Full Primer (PDF)

Marriage Counter-Messaging: An Action Plan

This action plan for marriage advocates and professional communicators applies findings from You’ve Been Framed: A New Primer for the Marriage Debate. Talking points and tactics presented here will sharpen your ability to strategically communicate pro-marriage arguments. This plan highlights new opportunities for persuasion informed by cognitive science and narrative theory to counter marriage revisionism.

Download the Action Plan (PDF)