Keeping House~ Part Two

I want to post some quotes form the book Keeping House, but this is such a good book that it is hard to pick out just a few passages. It really is worth the read.

Chapter 1
What's Christian About Housework?

pg 2-3
People need to eat, to sleep, to have clothes to wear; they need a place to read, a place to play, a place into which to welcome guest from which to go forth into the world. These are the needs that housework exist to meet.


Jesus had alot to say about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless. These Christian duties begin at home. It is when these duties are done in our homes it enables the rest of the family to go out and to meet the needs of others.

pg 4-5
Domesticity, we are to believe, is a leisure activity, one that results in elaborate, spotless perfection while requiring nothing of us but that we purchase a few brand-name products or publications.

Magazine racks are full of publications to inspire to have beautiful rooms, the home make over shows are on every network, but they don't address the HEART of a home. Making a home is not something you do as an extreme makeover on a weekend. It takes working at it day in and day out. pg 7 ...housework may be mundane, but it is not simple!

pg 5-6
Sociologist, Arkin Hochschild, documents the increasing prevalence of homes in which every adult member of the household works full time for pay outside the home and no one bears explicit, dedicated responsibility- even part time- for task inside the home. The result, she says, is homes of chaotic and unstructured that all the adults in the household would rather be at work than at home. After all, at work people know what their jobs are and can take a break when they are done; at home all anyone knows is that it is a mess waiting for someone to clean it up.

Because I Could!

Several ladies at our church are reading Keeping House, The Litany of Everyday Life, by Margaret Peterson. I have really enjoyed it so far and thought I'd post some of her thoughts.

In the Preface she tells how she was able to meet the needs of a friend as her newborn baby spent 3 months in the hospital dying. This friend had a large supportive church but few were continuously available because of children and/or jobs.

Mrs. Peterson states:

I realized that to a large degree,
I did it because I could.

I think this is a very key issue! She was available to minister, she could! First, we all have seasons. When the childless (or grown child) season is upon us our first thought should not be to fill that time with a job or 'I'm free to be me'. Titus 2 tells us that we are to be keepers AT home, and as older women we are to be teaching the younger women. After meeting the needs of our husband and home, our time and efforts could be filled with meeting the needs of so many around us.

...time deliberately set aside for keeping house is never just about
"making a home for my family."
Of course housework is about making a home,
but a Christian home, properly understood,
is never just for one's own family.
A Christian home overflows its boundaries;
it is an output of the Kingdom of God,
where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed
and there is room enough for everyone.

Keeping home can be a very mundane activity....

But at the very same time,
housekeeping is about practicing sacred disciplines
and creating a sacred space,
for the sake of Christ as we encounter him
in our fellow household members and in
neighbors, strangers, and guest.