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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
17 September 2006“Making a Home”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
This summer, I spent some time reading a book called, Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House. Various male visitors last summer who noticed that I was reading this 900-page work on housekeeping were amused; they felt this was unlikely reading for a man!
Needles to say, I disagree. Such comments don't strike me as enlightened or even practical. My visitors should have realized that men are perfectly capable of cooking and doing laundry. Indeed, even men who have servants to care for their homes still must make decisions about what they eat and what they wear and how to keep their homes clean and pleasant.
And as it happened, I found Home Comforts to be more than a "how-to" book. For me, it presented a spiritual vision of what a home can be.
As the author, Cheryl Mendelson observes in her preface, "... the way you experience life in your home is determined by how you do your housekeeping."
Your experience is affected because, Ms. Mendelson writes, "... Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home. Whether you live alone or with a spouse, parents, and ten children, it is your housekeeping that makes you home alive, that turns your home into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else."
And being ourselves, of course, is what religion is all about. So we prayed in today's Collect that "the Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts."
In all things. No wonder people used to have signs on their walls that read, "God Bless Our Home." They knew that it was in their dwelling places that they would receive many blessings of the Spirit.
Of course, housework can also seem to be drudgery — although Ms. Mendelson, who is a graduate of Harvard Law School, claims that the most boring tasks she has ever had to perform were jobs she had did when she was an associate in a law firm!
Yet with the dreary labors of cooking and cleaning come spiritual rewards. Although the author of Home Comforts doesn't use explicitly religious language, she is talking about the human spirit when she writes: "... housekeeping actually offers more opportunities for savoring achievement than almost any other work I can think of. Each of its regular routines brings satisfaction when it is completed. These routines echo the rhythm of life. You get satisfaction not only from the sense of order, cleanliness, freshness, peace and plenty restored, but from the knowledge that you yourself and those you care about are going to enjoy these benefits."
Your home then becomes an expression of your love for others — and your respect for yourself.
This of course takes work. Ms. Mendelson's recommendations require extraordinary organization. Countless household tasks are to be scheduled daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually, annually and all the organizing and sorting and cleaning is to be performed with strict discipline.
I couldn't begin to follow such a regiment, but I can certainly see the benefits. If you were offered the hospitality of Ms. Mendelson's home, you could be confident that the guest room would be clean, and you wouldn't get sick from the food!
And even at my own lesser level of housekeeping: I have noticed that when I've followed some of Ms. Mendelson's recommendations, the laundry has been fresher and the food has been tastier!
There are obvious parallels here with prayer. For prayer is a kind of spiritual housekeeping; prayer helps us to keep our souls in top condition.
Now as far as prayer is concerned, some people are lucky; they have a lot of time and energy that they can devote to prayer. Monks and nuns can be compared to the diligent housekeeper who vacuums once a day and washes the curtains every month, and knows the age of every item in his refrigerator.
People in monasteries can get up early to meditate; they have the time to attend lots of church services; they are able to study the Bible and spiritual books — so such folks will have advantages in keeping their spiritual homes in order.
But there's another way to apply this analogy to the rest of us who aren't monks or nuns. In both aspects of life, a little work can go a long way.
Some regular cleaning of your apartment is way better than none! A little time spent with God is better than no time at all.
Getting yourself fluffy, new towels is a treat that you will enjoy for months. So, too, the extra services you attend at Christmas will give you an interior lift. They'll get you ready to start the new year.
We should also note that it's possible to do housekeeping and prayer at the same time. In the Middle Ages, a monk called Brother Lawrence discovered during his long hours washing dishes in the monastery kitchen that he could "practice the presence of God."
My own variation on this idea is to listen to tapes of passages from the Bible while I make dinner or clean-up the kitchen. For me, hearing Scripture can give me fresh insights into familiar texts I have read many times before.
Whatever we do, we will find that even a little bit of discipline in prayer pays big dividends in ordering our souls. As in housework, small improvements lead to small successes. Those small successes make us more at home with ourselves.
And on this Homecoming Sunday, we who are members of Incarnation might also think of this church, our spiritual home. For like an apartment or house, a church is a place you can come home to.
It is, to borrow the words of the author of Home Comforts, the place where you "do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your [spiritual] home."
And so you will want to take care of your church as you would take care of your physical dwelling. You will want to make your religious community interesting and attractive so that you will enjoy going there, and other people will want to share its life with you.
Two related challengers, then, as the autumn season begins: making our apartments or houses into homes; and making our church into a home. Making them into places where we practice the presence of God, where the Holy Spirit can "direct and rule our hearts."
Making them into places where we can be ourselves. Places where we can offer thanks to God — as we await that final home God has prepared for us.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.