Home
We packed our bags at the last minute and threw them in the back of the Rover. We were headed home for Thanksgiving, a last minute decision, and the pixies couldn’t contain their enthusiasm, giddy with excitement. A trip to PA from NC held so much wonder and joy for these girls: the mountains, the late night drive, the harvest moon lighting up the evening sky.
There’s just something about coming home. The familiar smells, the soothing sounds, the refreshing tastes remind one of shared past times cloaked in laughter, love, and longing.
We long for the simplicity that home provides.
C.S. Lewis referred to this as “homeliness” in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy. Whenever I think of homeliness, the last thing that comes to mind is brilliance, glory, and wonder. Yet this is the exact word that transformed C. S. Lewis's thinking of the simple things of home. His best friend, Arthur Greeves, drew him into a new realm of reading; one that left the Northern fantasies Lewis was initially so keen on.
Arthur opened Lewis's eyes to authors such as Jane Austin and Charlotte Bronte, inviting Lewis to see the beauty in the commonplace. What he termed, homeliness.
In Surprised By Joy, Lewis remarks,
"The very qualities which had previously deterred me from such books Arthur taught me to see as their charm. What I would have called their 'stodginess' or 'ordinariness' he called ‘homeliness’—a key word in his imagination."
The qualities to which Lewis refers, the weather, the beauty of vegetables, a cat squeezing underneath a barnyard door, are the same ordinary qualities I so often take for granted: the outside light dancing across the bedroom floor, the peelings of carrots cluttering the sink, the yawp of our Goldendoodle, Cash, as he awakes from his slumber.
"He did not mean merely Domesticity, though that came into it,” continues Lewis. “He meant the rooted quality which attaches them to all our simple experiences, to weather, food, the family, the neighborhood."
Our simple experiences are often our most treasured memories. There is a brilliance in these everyday occurrences: the laughter of my children heard up the stairs, the remnants of pancake batter left out at the kitchen sink, the shift of the moon on the horizon.
A wonder unfolds as I pay attention to all these things. But I must slow myself long enough to find the homely around me. In the most ordinary of places the extraordinary emerges.
Beauty unfurls around you today, my friend. Perhaps it's the persistent rain that creates a pelting melody against the roof, or the glory rising like the steam from your coffee mug. It’s there. We just need to awaken our hearts to its wonder.
I hope this past holiday week you were able to slow down, catch your breath, soak in the wonder of everyday. May this carry you on into your coming weeks as the busyness of the season threatens to crowd out the beauty of the everyday simple experiences. May there be a rooted quality to all your days.
We can find the homely everywhere. And it feels like home.