Ordinary Beauty
A feeling of settlement
When a holiday rushes towards us, we can become overwhelmed and think others are doing it better than we are, whatever “it” is — hosting, being guests, being “just us,” thinking ahead, worrying (are some people better at worrying than you and I? Probably not).
The art of ordinary beauty, the disposition of all the elements of what we have been given — people and things — according to their place in the order of life, provides what Roger Scruton, in a phrase that has stuck with me since I heard it, called “a sense of settlement.”
That art is practiced in the family, radiating outwards to society at large, insofar as people don’t discount it, thinking it doesn’t matter.
But without a sense of settlement, of a confident pattern one can count on, of affection and cheerfulness in the ordinary ups and downs of life, we lose our glimpse of heaven.
The housewife is the indispensable practitioner of this art; pondering it daily, with gratitude, orients her to it.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Albert Neuhuys - Middagmaal in een boerengezin
The School for Housewives brings you short, practical, and thoughtful messages to inspire you to make your home. For the longer version:
Don’t wish to subscribe just now? How about this:
As with everything here at the SFH, the best thing is for you to take what I’m saying — ideas that come from my experience of 45 years of marriage and raising seven children — and apply them to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!
I am definitely the best at worrying! No contest! 🤣 But with these daily doses of Auntie Leila and the slow, lifelong acquisition of housekeeping skills I think I will eventually be able to lay the sillier worries to rest and offer up whatever remains.
The post “ordinary beauty” was especially lovely, and would make a great mission statement for my newly discovered “higher” calling (as a woman) to home and family. Even, perhaps especially, now that I am quite old, and so often alone.
When I admitted that “disorder is my middle name,” my priest patiently instructed me in spiritual tactics to tie my home duties to my morning offering. That takes practice and I am grateful.
And now, since enrolling in The School for Housewives, I’m no longer baffled, uncertain what to prioritize. You give readers multiple tried and true plans of attack for everything I was reluctant to start. The posts are all short and sweet, they are unfailingly spiritually and technically actionable.
Though much at home remains to be done, I’m working smarter and am inwardly renewed. And yes, cooperating with God in the mundane has rewards even now.
I’m sure I’m not the only reader who sees your name in the inbox and thinks, “Thank God, the reinforcements have arrived!”