September 30
    
My home is my retreat and
resting-place from the wars.
I try to keep this corner as a haven
against the tempest outside, as I
do another corner of my soul.

Michel de Montaigne

  

Today's Meditation:

I'm not sure that I would refer to our day-to-day lives as "the wars," but Montaigne's words are very profound here.  So many of us tend to see our homes as functional places-- places to eat, to sleep, to store our furniture and our cars, to shower, and on and on.  When we see it as a functional place, then it can't serve as a retreat, a place where we can find a way to rejuvenate ourselves and gather our strength for continuing on in our lives.

If we do treat our homes as retreats, if we do turn them into comfortable places where we can renew ourselves and our spirits, then we can give ourselves an important edge when things do get difficult and the stress levels rise.  Wars or not, we all face stress and challenges, and if we're well prepared spiritually to deal with those things, then they won't debilitate us when they rear their heads in our lives.

If we do want our homes to be resting-places, then we need to take the time to make them places that we love to come to, places where we love to spend time.  That doesn't mean spending tons of money on decorations, but it does mean trying to eliminate clutter and finding things that are aesthetically pleasing with which to fill our living space.  It means minimizing television and noise, and keeping the home as a peaceful place where we can find pleasant shelter from the storms of life.

Our homes should be our allies in our journeys through life.  If we make them into pleasant places where we love to be, they can serve us very well as we face the normal stresses and strains of the lives that we're living.

Questions to consider:

How can we make our homes into pleasant retreats without doing tons of spending on redecorating?

Why do so few people pay attention to the comfort levels of their homes?

How have our homes become much more functional than rejuvenating?

For further thought:
   
They are the happiest, be they king or peasant, who find peace in their homes.


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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