Clarksons belong to one another. Differing in personality, quirky, loud, opinionated, much more, but we are one another’s tribe and we know we have a people we belong to. Through the years, as we were living day to day, I didn’t know how much we were building close bonds, but now, I see that through all the years of intentional living, we were becoming each other’s community. (And yes, Clay, Sarah, Thomas and my grandkids are missing but they couldn’t come because of Covid.)
I remember one of the first times I realized how much we all meant to one another.
A crisp fall evening, with blazing sunset of reds, pinks, corals shouting for attention out our back deck found us taking a moment to admire. As we were sitting in peace, the front door opened and my 26 year old, Joel, strode in with weary face and exhausted body.
"I just decided to come home after working all last night and today, because I need "us" to give me some rest and peace.”
Dinner still a half-hour away, I quickly cut some savory cheese and mounted some crisp whole grain crackers on a plate and poured a bubbly drink in a glass and gave him my offering, "Just a little something to hold you over till dinner is ready."
The furrowed brow softened and he said, "This is why I came home--I knew you all would fill me back up and I wanted peace and quiet for at least one night."
One of the best powers of home is the life that comes from within that gives comfort, a "place to belong" and a place that soothes the soul, inspires the mind, and gives a moral compass through all the twists and turns of life.
I asked my boys last year why they both idealized the thought of coming home. Both said, "It was the hot meals we shared every night. The welcome of our dining table. The cups of tea and books read and all that went into making our home place the best place to be, the one place that always said, no matter what, you are welcome!"
Often when we think of having company over, we think of cleaning our home, cooking great meals, decorating, putting forth our best.
Yet, when I pondered Jesus, I realized, he prepared a garden for his children when they were first created--one of beauty, color, endless choices for food, a palette of delight to enjoy in all that His artist hand could create.
Before he would give his last heart-felt words to his disciples, he had chosen a home with an upper room, he had sent a servant to prepare it and to prepare food, so that his words given would fall in the atmosphere and beauty of a prepared place. And I have to think that the God who prepared a garden of such beauty at the beginning, had also put thought into preparing the place of the last supper with the eye of comfort, beauty, hospitality.
He, the one who is still going to prepare a place for us in eternity--that there will be many mansions where we will dwell with Him.
Home is one of the things that many in our world have not valued, and so there is no prepared place.
It is in giving rhythms of home, meals, tea times, convalescent food (soups, crackers, ginger-ale), birthday fare; favorite Sunday night snack dinners; Saturday night pizza and movie nights; Shepherd's meal on Christmas Eve; candle light evenings with soft music.
The giving of hospitality to our beloved children is an art that will truly reach their souls and give them a reason to believe in the God of love and holiness. When body needs and emotional needs and minds are filled with nobility and inspiration, then souls are predisposed to want to follow the God who is revered in all of these rituals.
It is not the indoctrination of theology forced down daily that crafts a soul that believes, it is the serving and loving and giving and celebration of God’s art and love, creation and truth, that surrounds the messages where souls are reached.
A truth, without love and grace, is a truth that is rejected,
because Jesus' words without Jesus becoming the servant king who washed feet and fed thousands and took children into His arms,
would not be God incarnated.