to nest or not

what in fact is a home
and just how relevant is the idea of home
to existing in the world
for of course we know there are people who are homeless
who live with the mere vestiges of the necessary elements
that go into making a home a home


most humans on the planet orient themselves to a specific place
and identify their place on the planet with who they actually are
this gives our discussion of home a profound geographical quality


yet my purpose here is to give physical description to an actual structure


of course there are degrees of permanence when we consider the notion of home
nomadic peoples have always erected structures which may appear flimsy
in contrast to the heavy structures built today to house people who as a matter of fact
may be as temporarily located as your average hunter/gatherer family
we live in a cultural atmosphere where houses are built and inhabited in sequence 
by numerous familial groups who put down shallow roots and seem to move on
at the slightest provocation


I in fact do not live in a structure that has about it a warm sense of home
I live in a concrete block building
and even though I've inhabited the same cell for 25 years I am given over to a life
that advocates a consistent awareness of earthly ephemerality
yet I am at the same time rooted in a tradition
that speaks to me and the world of solid stability
I have a pretty good idea as to where I will be buried


are there some elements of home which characterize every attempt to be in one place for no matter how long?


humans are given over to the desire for home in order to assure themselves of safety,
of some comfort,  of the possibility of sustenance,  of a tangible separation between ones private life and the demands of the public world,  home is a structure that speaks of security and individual freedom


let's just say... fire
 a way of ensuring warmth
a way of creating a context for warm food
this is a common almost universal and central element of what it means to be a home


and bedding
a place where one can assure oneself of sleep
under the protection of a roof and walls
against the onslaught of weather or hungry beasts


so physical sustenance and sleep
require some form of heat and some means of being
reclined in such a way that sleep is possible
even the briefest tent on the desert asserts these two phenomena


beyond that what goes into a home?
indeed for the nomad his fire and his mat for sleeping on the ground
perhaps his tent and some tools for survival are his most treasured possessions


in our day we live in widespread exaggerations of buildings used as home
people are utilizing and enclosing private space far in excess of their temporal needs
it is simply a matter of capability
let us look at the modern American home in practical terms
in the subdivisions of America we see thousands upon thousands of structures
whose main visible feature is the garage
a not so subtle testimony to the status of the automobile in the conducting of our culture
the car is used as a  life source to the world 
it is hard to imagine someone these days deciding that a car is not important


what else about the home


at least one large room in your average modern domestic structure is dedicated to
electronic entertainment: tv,  music stereo system, computer, games of various sorts


indeed this room has taken on a certain prominence unbefitting of subject matter
and yet it is safe to say that hundreds of thousands if not millions of americans
resort to these entertainment centers as  places of benign distraction...collective sites of time wasting and useless and often unhealthy eating and drinking


the dimension of physical sustenance is evidenced in the modern home by the
placing of the kitchen at a rather central location on the first floor
and perhaps supplemented by an outside mode of cookery
yet with the ridiculous plethora of restaurants and easy food access
the actual time your average woman spends in the kitchen is greatly minimized so while food is still given some honor with the existence of stainless steel refrigerators pantrys swollen with easy access food supply and cupboards with clear demarcations of immediate practicality...it is nonetheless more and more the case that families do not sit down and eat together and the role of meaningful sustenance is subsumed in a swirl of frenetic activity which militates against the fundamental purpose of home


what else...
the bedrooms
this takes us to the most primitive aspect of home creation
and at least somewhat associated with the bedrooms are the rooms for toiletry
and it would seem that a classic space should be set aside for library/books/study
in every home yet I find this is less and less the case as study rooms have been usurped
by the computer phenomenon


and to fill the place up let us consider storage
basic utility space
and space on the immediate outside of the structure utilized as porch patio or deck


these seem to be adequate descriptions of what a common expectation of home is to be
again it is significant to note
that while the structure is empty in the process of being sold or renovated
it is not a home
it is only proper to suggest the word home when in fact a human dimension is present
for at least long enough to attain to a sense of relative security in the world


man tends to amplify his own needs for comfort, for space, for distraction, for purpose
if survival was indeed a demand of daily life the presence of a garden
and perhaps other food sources like dairy or foul would figure in the mix
but very few people live with these sorts of survival concerns
the modern grocery store accounts for all the food gathering requirements
most anyone would possibly need...and now with online delivery services one does not actually need to go out to acquire physical sustenance


when human life, food, necessary activity, rest,  an abiding sense of security, and the comfort of relative privacy all come together to sustain any one human life,  it is safe to say there is a home


so then we are moved to further inquire as to the distinction trying to be made in this discourse
extended as it may be
between a living space which is given over to purely utilitarian ends
and one that affords the constant possibility of the means of transcendence


does the home have some inherent quality that helps us define a place
of relative universal necessity in terms of sanctity?




now I live in a place that is dedicated to sanctity
yet the cloister appears in rather bold utilitarian terms
a certain minimalist asceticism is explicit in the very lines and contours
the very materials that make up this building


it seems that once we include ideas such as creative and artistic endeavor
the potential inherent in a designated place of prayer or meditation
a place of concentrated study
and the ready availability of the possibility of nurturing love
then we can begin to discuss some ways in which
the ordinary home can be understood as a place of holy activity


the degree to which homes are diluted of the human activities of transcendent being
is the degree to which any culture diminishes itself and enslaves itself to destructive
cultural definitions and activities which give rise to man's enslavement in the world


man adrift is a man who has no place to long


home is where most people belong




....

domestic bliss anyone?

i've been mulling somewhat
 over what angle to take
as I look into the prospects for  the theology of the home


should I start with the physical structure?
perhaps articulate the vast variety of structures
understood and used as homes
 by people and animals in the world?


the papal encyclicals on family and social justice
including the most recent plea from rome
concerning the health of the planet we all share
generally refer to the world as our shared home
and theologically speaking there is this
commonly pronounced idea of all of us
ending up in the heavenly home of god
so home carries some definite symbolic weight as well


the notion of heaven as a shared banquet in a loving home
is the predominant image of the hearts'  most familiar yearning


should I then merely speak of home in symbolic terms


it is current to speak of personal experience
as  a judging factor for observing sociological phenomena
even the critical theory school dictates the subjective experience
as the working context for social judgement


so I will begin with an experience


a few weeks ago I happened upon a fiesta de la guatemaltecos
it was a birthday party for a 7 year old girl
the Guatemalans reside in strong communities of
shared apartments or trailer courts
and they live simply
yet they sustain one another and within that there are riches
so I could smell carne asada on the grill
I could take in aromas of frijoles and arroz
salad and sauces were imposing themselves on my olfactory awareness
with no little confidence
I was invited into this fairly small apartment
and the party was in full swing
food was being served and people were sitting in shifts
at the flimsy table...the altar of sorts
at the climax of the party I counted 33 people
all of whom were quite at ease being together
and this offered a wonderful opportunity for me to feel
quite at ease amid strangers
I sat there with my plate of food amid the loving containment
of human complexity and pondered the reality of home:
the women were at the stove and the sink and serving things
around the room
el hombre de casa was making sure that plenty of carne asada was on hand
people were drinking beer


as far as I could tell the attitude was;
this is a good enough excuse to be amongst one another
to honor together our families our children
and one gringo guest


I have been thinking about this for more than a week now:
how home became a gratuitous offering of charity and sustenance
and joy abounded in the room
everyone seemed perfectly happy to be there
and the children were in their element with gags and hats and whistles
and ribbons and balloons and a big ole birthday cake
the liturgical aspect of the evening came when the young girl
was obligated to smash her face into the frosting after blowing out one candle


this seemed to produce an excess of camera activity


the symbolic gesture spoke to me
for in its odd way it suggested that
life is sort of ridiculous and our happiness shared with one another
even to the point of graphic silliness
is all we have
with which to brace ourselves
against the harshness offered by the world outside


the warm sincerity of all the people with whom I shook hands
spoke to me of the universal quality of the necessity of home
all diplomacy should be relegated to homes it seems


it became apparent to me that home can be  a small apartment with
30 happy people sharing food and life together
and for the people who actually live there
the evening is expressive of the vitality of their humble existence
they were more than willing to invest in the possibility of  happiness


it seems to me now that that is something fundamental
to any discussion of the theology of the home


--  a place where people are willing to invest earnestly in the possibility of happiness  --










what other topics of home must I explore?














...




















.

the proto-sacrament

it has taken some time for the alignments of space and time to so converge so as to
provide a working establishment for the treating of the theme at hand


I begin the vision provided in the encyclical  Amoris Laetitia  which is the most recent Vatican effort to bolster our basic understanding of family....in the opening chapters of the document there is a reference to a poet   Borges...a line from one of his more social poems.... ' every home is a lampstand'


Francisco Jorge Bergoglio then provides an instant picture of family life set around the table of the home during a feast....he consciously presents this image as the essential focus of what the rest of the document is to be about


thus I begin to contemplate the theological possibilities of centering a theological discussion on the reality of home and home life...how distracted we've all become from this one basic principle...it is common amongst young people to express surprise at having to sit formally at a table....the practice of family meals has been all but undermined in favor of he plenitude of quick food and restaurants and a shifting of focus regarding what the shared meal is actually all about...the modern mechanistic appropriation of food has meant that the mere function of sustenance is an end in itself....food is a biological necessity and that then remains the predominant attitude of American concerns with eating


So I have wanted to begin with the table....I have wanted to say that a home is not a home without a table...I have also said time and again that the basis of culture is the hearth...a healthy vibrant hearth has meaning beyond its function


I began thinking about the cultural phenomenon of home years ago while reading Wendell Berry...his observations are no less significant today...he describes the paradigm of the farmstead as the basic social pattern of cultivating cultural themes and relationships in society...this now being usurped by the more urban models -----and necessities of the home taking on a mere functionary status in relationship to a workplace....the idea of the farm is the extending rings of connectivity centering on the home - the farmyard - the land itself - the neighbors - the town......in this model the home remains the center of all cultural consideration and could easily be thought of as containing theological content




with the compromise of agri-business the farm becomes a competitive entity amongst other competitive entities each farmer is  a business unto himself  and the broader world is his market not the local needs of daily goods


the encyclical
Amoris Laetitia does not dwell upon the concept of home
only a few allusions in the opening paragraphs


as a roman catholic I must say that it would appear impossible to regard a public christian worship space without a table...the celebration of eucharist is determined not simply by bread and wine but by the physical context of the table...to which all are invited


the social implications are as fascinating as they are troubling
I was once fond of angrily debasing the very American preoccupation with
real-estate
thinking of real-estate brokers as parasites of the worst order
feeding off of this strange tendency to make a commodity of property
a commodity that is always priced, always for sale,, always being assessed
in terms of potential worth
this has resulted in  the phenomenon of signs appearing which proclaim
HOME FOR SALE
and it occurs to me that this is a terrible denigration of the concept of home
for in a sane world one would not even be able to make that statement
a HOME can never be sold
a HOME can be made
a HOME can be kept
but
  only a house can be sold
a structure emptied of all the evidence of a family


I wish to establish something along the lines of sacramental consideration
 for the home




another poet - Robert Frost - stated something to the affect that


...home is the place where 
   when you go there
   they have to take  you in




I immediately liken these words to the fundamental principle of grace
in christian teaching


home is where grace
that purely gratuitous offering from god
is given first
and
it is re-enforced in the ordinary daily process of work, meals, conversation,
hopefully music,  and prayer




let us consider the lived experience of home as a real SACRAMENT
























...

open discourse

this is a new blog which is specific in its objective to acquire insight and activity which might lend itself to the notion of home as a sanctuary and somehow fundamental to all perceptions of the world be they political social artistic practical or essential