For my Marriage and Family class, I read an essay titled "My Home as a Temple" by Kristine Manwaring. This is the response I wrote to it.
Years ago, a friend’s mom brought her over to my house for a sleepover. Though neither my friend nor her mom was Mormon, both were at least somewhat religious. The mom made a comment that day that has stuck with me in the years since: she said that she loved coming to our home, because she could feel such a good spirit about the place. I lived there every day for years, and never noticed the ‘sweet spirit’ she said she felt the moment she walked through the door—especially not through all the stress, tension, mess, and rush that was there day in and day out. But when I thought about it, I could feel the Spirit filling our home, too, as we (especially Mom) worked to make the house a true home.
The Proclamation on the Family states that “parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their…needs, and to teach them” (Proclamation para.6). As parents, we must do for our children in our home what the Lord does for us in His house: raise, nurture, and instruct. We cannot do this properly without the Spirit being present, and the Spirit will not dwell where people are not living worthily. Our homes must become spiritual oases from the world, much as the temple is an oasis. For me, it’s hard to understand that my house can still be worthy of the Spirit if it’s not silent, if there’s a little bit of clutter on the table, or if dirty laundry isn’t quite done yet. The author, Kristine Manwaring, had the same struggle, trying to force her home to be as silent and pristine as the temple is. But with little kids and busy schedules, that simply wasn’t going to happen. She resented doing housework, feeling that it took away from her time to be peaceful and reflect on sacred things. Through talking with her neighbor, she learned that what she thought of as dreary drudgery could actually be a lifestyle patterned after the Savior’s, if her attitude were right. One phrase out of her essay really struck a chord with me: “When we care for the physical as well as the spiritual needs of our families, we are patterning our lives after the Savior” (Manwaring para.6).
I think the thing that I learned the most from this essay was summed up quite will by Manwaring. She says that we don’t need to try to force our homes to be as sacred as the temple—as silent, pristine, and utterly holy. “The sacredness,” she says, “is somehow already there” (Manwaring para. 7). We just need to focus on our attitude towards daily living—the cleaning, the cooking, the errands, the frenzy, and the fun—and make sure that w recognize the sacredness that is an integral part of a family-centered home.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
"The Family and the Kitchen Sink"
This is an response to the essay "The Family and the Kitchen Sink" written by the Jeff and Juanita Hill family. This was written for my Marriage and Family class at BYU.
My parents’ home has a large backyard that includes a sandbox, a play structure, lots of lawn space, a few fruit trees, and, usually, a small garden. While I loved playing in the backyard, I hated the yard work. Who wanted to spend their gorgeous Saturday morning pulling weeds out of the bug-infested sandbox? Or planting tomatoes (ew!) in the hard dirt on the hill? Or, worst of all, cleaning spider webs off of the play structure—with the spiders usually still there! But we worked together. It was a time of grumbling and whining, yes, but also of laughing and talking with my parents and siblings. It taught me to love that sense of accomplishment that came when, after 3 hours of pulling, the sandbox is finally cleared of weeds. It taught me to work.
The Proclamation says that “Successful marriages and families are established on the principles of ...work, and wholesome recreational activities” (para. 7). It also says that parents have a responsibility to teach their children “to love and serve one another” (para. 6). What better way to accomplish both of these divine mandates than by implementing family work? The Hill family talks about their family work tradition of doing dishes together and all the lessons they each learned from that time spent together. They didn’t talk about temporal lessons like how best to clean a roasting pan or how to organize team work, but talked instead about life lessons they learned—sacrifice, respect, facing challenges, developing talents, and family bonding. Together, they learned so much more than what was on the surface. Washing the dishes, for their family, was a form of work and of wholesome recreation; they made a game or competition out of it many times, but the work still got done. They came to enjoy the time together. Through this family work, their family became closer and happier, it seems.
What I learned from this essay is a two-fold lesson: First, my parents weren’t trying to punish us when they made us pull weeds or plant tomatoes; they were teaching us to work. Second, family work and recreation is something that I want to implement in my own home. I’m getting married at the end of the semester, and something that’s been on my mind a lot is what kind of home I want to have, what kind of traditions and habits I want to create, and how things are going to work in my own home. I’d already thought about chores and things like that, but that was more as a way to lighten my work load. Now I want to find ways to incorporate family work, not for the convenience, but for the family bonding and the lessons we can all learn from it.
My parents’ home has a large backyard that includes a sandbox, a play structure, lots of lawn space, a few fruit trees, and, usually, a small garden. While I loved playing in the backyard, I hated the yard work. Who wanted to spend their gorgeous Saturday morning pulling weeds out of the bug-infested sandbox? Or planting tomatoes (ew!) in the hard dirt on the hill? Or, worst of all, cleaning spider webs off of the play structure—with the spiders usually still there! But we worked together. It was a time of grumbling and whining, yes, but also of laughing and talking with my parents and siblings. It taught me to love that sense of accomplishment that came when, after 3 hours of pulling, the sandbox is finally cleared of weeds. It taught me to work.
The Proclamation says that “Successful marriages and families are established on the principles of ...work, and wholesome recreational activities” (para. 7). It also says that parents have a responsibility to teach their children “to love and serve one another” (para. 6). What better way to accomplish both of these divine mandates than by implementing family work? The Hill family talks about their family work tradition of doing dishes together and all the lessons they each learned from that time spent together. They didn’t talk about temporal lessons like how best to clean a roasting pan or how to organize team work, but talked instead about life lessons they learned—sacrifice, respect, facing challenges, developing talents, and family bonding. Together, they learned so much more than what was on the surface. Washing the dishes, for their family, was a form of work and of wholesome recreation; they made a game or competition out of it many times, but the work still got done. They came to enjoy the time together. Through this family work, their family became closer and happier, it seems.
What I learned from this essay is a two-fold lesson: First, my parents weren’t trying to punish us when they made us pull weeds or plant tomatoes; they were teaching us to work. Second, family work and recreation is something that I want to implement in my own home. I’m getting married at the end of the semester, and something that’s been on my mind a lot is what kind of home I want to have, what kind of traditions and habits I want to create, and how things are going to work in my own home. I’d already thought about chores and things like that, but that was more as a way to lighten my work load. Now I want to find ways to incorporate family work, not for the convenience, but for the family bonding and the lessons we can all learn from it.
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