A Beautiful Home Does Not Mean Contemporary Design Trends

The secret to having a beautiful home has got nothing to do with contemporary design trends.
Or ‘updating’ your furniture and furnishings to keep in line with fads.

The end goal of having a nice home is not to have a nice home – that is, a magazine feature-
worthy home designed to the nth degree – it is to have a nice environment that serves the
people who live therein.

That’s right, our homes should be designed to serve the people who live there -and are
welcomed in – and not the other way around.

Further to this, our homes should be a place of rest and recreation. An environment, a space
that enables us to enter into stillness and quiet, where we can enter into moments of solitude
with God.

It is within our homes that we need to be able to find rest, be nourished and be our real
authentic selves.

Why? Because we don’t want to give the best of ourselves to the world, but to those whom
we live with.

Clutterbugs and creativity

Thanks to Stina Constantine, I discovered that I am a cricket. Not a literal one obviously, but
one of the four ‘Clutterbug’ styles as developed by Cas Aarssen. It’s worth a look.
Why would I need to know this about myself? It helps me to understand how I need the
house to serve me so that I can put into place design, aesthetics, and organisational
systems that maximise the functionality and efficiency of each space in the house.
This enables me to create systems that make less work for me, and others in my house,
which then gives us the freedom to inhabit that same space and find our rest, repose and
inspire us.

Yes, our homes are supposed to be places where our creativity can flourish.
How often do ideas or inspirations come to us when we are at home, in the shower, washing
the dishes or mowing the lawn? In other words, when we find moments of stillness that make
contemplation possible?

Our creativity is a reflection of our Creator. God made Adam from clay, and Eve from Adam’s
rib. If that is not creative than I don’t know what is.
This creativity then, is meant to be an enjoyable part of the leisure that we enjoy at home.

Beauty more objective than beheld

Who then, can we look to for inspiration in making our homes beautiful?

Saint Thomas Aquinas of course. Yes, seriously.

The ‘dumb ox’ posited that there were three elements that are objectively present in beauty:
clarity, proportion and integrity.

And whilst they are all important, I’d argue that integrity – also described as completeness or
wholeness – and proportion, or harmony, are the most important aspects of making a home
beautiful. Especially a family home. Wholeness and harmony means that our rooms each
serve their individual purpose and together, as a whole serve the people who live there.
There is no rule or expectation that all homes should look alike. In fact, I’d argue the
opposite. If our homes serve the people who live there then each home must necessarily be
different just as each family is.

And in each home our ultimate aim is to create a place of stillness and rest where we can
spend time in solitude with God and respond to the creative inspirations we find therein.

Clutterbugs, bookworms and resources just for you

I might be a cricket in terms of my clutterbug style, but I am most unashamedly a bookworm.
That’s why, when compiling a list of resources for this issue of Together I have a pile of them
to recommend!

And it’s a good way to keep ourselves distracted while we wait for the official announcement
of the newest members to the Virtue Ministry Team. Patience is a virtue right, and this is
another opportunity for us to practice it.

So, moving on…a few resources for your bookshelf, eBook reader or podcast app.
Theology of the Home – four books in this series have now been released. The brain child
of Carrie Gress and Noelle Merring, they are beautiful hard cover ‘coffee table’ books with
exquisite photography and graspable theology. They can however, lend the reader to
aspirational ideas. If you don’t have the budget for one of these, and don’t have a friend who
can lend it to you, the team have a website of the same title and post regular articles and
blog posts on this topic.

Leisure as the basis of culture – by Josef Pieper.

A slight book, but a more intellectual study on why leisure is incredibly important for the creation of culture. It poses a question as to whether the busyness of our age has significantly contributed to the decline of culture, and also what we can do about it.

The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming – by Sally and Sarah Clarkson.

Sally Clarkson has a large body of work in the Catholic sphere and this is
one, created alongside her daughter Sarah, is area where they excel in encouraging families
to start by loving those closest to them.

S07 Ep15: Kindness: More Than Being Nice – Rediscovering the Fruit of the Spirit

In this episode of the Living Fullness Podcast, Stina and Padre delve into one of the often-
overlooked Fruits of the Spirit: Kindness. While kindness might seem soft or secondary, it is

an essential sign of the Holy Spirit’s work in a Christian’s life. Stina and Padre discuss how
kindness differs from mere ‘niceness,’ why it’s critical for Christian witness (especially in
public discourse), and how it serves as a litmus test in relationships and life decisions. Join
them as they unpack the transformative power of authentic, Spirit-rooted kindness.