Since I just spent considerable time talking about the physical aspects of a home, I didn't want to move on without talking about the intangible elements of making a home. What is it that turns a house into a home?
I believe that it's not just the four walls, the furniture and the cleanliness that make up a home. It's the people. It's what they do when they are in the home, how they spend their time, what they say, how they treat each other that shows what they value. Organization and cleanliness are important, but not at the expense of real human interaction in the environment. It doesn't have to be one or the other. I believe that a middle ground suits me best. Clean enough not to be chaotic, but not so clean that it stifles activity and interaction.
There are many homes that I've loved just "being in" through my life. These pictures show one of them. It's the home of my Grandma Mayme and Grandpa Ray. It is in a small Utah town and these pictures were taken the day of Grandma's funeral, February 17, 1994. I always loved visiting this home. The atmosphere was the important thing that mattered most to me. It wasn't perfectly decorated with all the latest fashions, it wasn't spotlessly clean (although it was well organized and clean), it wasn't a mansion house or a show place by any means. It was a comfortable, cozy, inviting, warm, friendly place to visit. I felt loved there. They always shared good food, good conversation and played games. Rook was a family favorite along with Parcheesi. Aunts and Uncles who lived near by came over to visit and we got to know extended generations of family members. The feeling there had nothing to do with color pallets, white glove clean inspections and coordinating fabric swatches. It had to do with feeling important, being noticed, being recognized, being loved and included in the conversation. True, the punksters had to eat the hard tack candy and weren't allowed to partake of the Dorothy Pollard chocolates until they had reached a more mature and distinguished age, but still, we felt important and loved in that home. More family meals were served to scores of people on folding tables with chairs in the small living room and kitchen than I suppose have been served in most homes I know of now. All were welcome and all were important. It was a feeling I'll never forget and a driving force behind my desire to welcome family and friends into my own home, no matter how clean or well decorated it is.
In the June issue of the Ensign is a copy of a talk that Elder Douglas L. Callister (my friend Marcy's former mission president) gave at a BYU devotional in 2006. It's powerful and worthy of further consideration and maybe even a FHE on the topic. He encourages us to strive to achieve a home, even a heavenly home, by considering the following ideas and by implementing the following practices of improving Language, Literature, Music, Art, Appearance and Attitude. Some excepts from the talk:
~The nearer we get to God, the more easily our spirits are touched by refined and beautiful things.
~Refinement in speech is reflected not only in our choice of words but also in the things we talk about. There are those who always speak of themselves; they are either insecure or proud. There are those who always speak of others; they are usually boring. There are those who speak of stirring ideas, compelling books, and inspiring doctrine; these are the few who make their mark in this world. The subjects discussed in heaven are not trifling or mundane; they are sublime beyond our most extended imagination. We will feel at home there if we are rehearsed on this earth in conversing about the refined and noble, clothing our expressions in well-measured words.
~I don’t know whether our heavenly home has a television set or a DVD player, but in my mind’s imagery it surely has a grand piano and a magnificent library. There was a fine library in the home of President Gordon B. Hinckley’s youth. It was not an ostentatious home, but the library contained about 1,000 volumes of the rich literature of the world, and President Hinckley spent his early years immersed in these books. To be well-read, however, it is not necessary to possess expensive collections of literature, for they are available to rich and poor alike in the libraries of the world.
~When some music has passed the tests of time and been cherished by the noble and refined, our failure to appreciate it is not a condemnation of grand music. The omission is within. If a young person grows up on a steady diet of hamburgers and french fries, he is not likely to become a gourmet. But the fault is not with fine food. He just grew up on something less. Some have grown up on a steady diet of musical french fries.
~Would this be true of the environment in which you live? Is it a house of order? Need you dust, clean, and rearrange before you invite the Spirit of the Lord into your home? President Lorenzo Snow (1814–1901) said: “The Lord does not intend that the Saints shall live always in dens and caves of the earth, but that they shall build fine houses. When the Lord comes he will not expect to meet a dirty people, but a people of refinement.”
~Your Father in Heaven has sent you away from His presence to have experiences you would not have had in your heavenly home—all in preparation for the conferral of a kingdom. He doesn’t want you to lose your vision. You are children of an exalted being. You are foreordained to preside as kings and queens. You will live in a home and environment of infinite refinement and beauty, as reflected in the language, literature, music, art, and order of heaven.
