Live the Gospel, Molly-Weasley style! And other wisdom from THE GRACE OF ENOUGH

I love my house. It's a small, started-in-the-seventeenth-century colonial, built onto over the years, but still bursting at the seams with my growing family. My mother-in-law brought my husband here, wrapped up in swaddling blankets, forty years ago, and there have been Houghs here ever since. My children dig around in the gardens on the back hill and find old, buried treasure (a.k.a. those little green army men) from Mark's childhood. They climb the same trees he climbed. The fireplace in the tiny living room has hosted innumerable philosophical conversations and teary-eyed heart-to-hearts. My four youngest children were born in the bedroom upstairs (the one with peeling mid-twentieth-century wallpaper and creaky 17th century floorboards). 

But sometimes I need reminders of how wonderful a place this is. Because my kitchen tile has been gradually peeling up to reveal old fiberboard beneath for at least twenty years--in front of the sink, where women have stood for literally centuries, there's a giant bald patch that even an oversized rug can't quite hide anymore. (My mother-in-law lamented it before she even knew I existed.) Insulation, apparently, was a non-existent idea 300 years ago, so on cold days (like today), you can feel breezes pouring in through the outside walls of the house. Every inside wall needs to be repainted, and until a desperate dash this summer to keep up with insurance company demands, the outside walls were so pale and peeling that a photographer once stopped by randomly, requesting to take pictures of her kids by my "quaint" front door. The to-do list is a mile long, and our time-available list is...wait, what exactly is this concept of "available time," anyway??

Taken during actual writing of this blog post. Note black space heater at the bottom, keeping our toes intact.

 Sometimes my heart glows with love for this home's history and character and coziness. Sometimes (usually in the winter when I can't feel my fingers anymore), I've been brought to tears by how much less it seems than the mythical standard. Last winter, on one of those latter days, Mark spoke right to my book-loving heart by telling me, "So who wants a Dursley house anyway? Let's be Weasleys. Everyone wants to go to the Weasleys' house." With my six joyful and, um, loud children ("more children than they can afford") piling on top of one another...with the little stained-glass window and dozen or so teacups in the shabby chic kitchen (being honest here, there isn't any "chic" about it), with the big pot of Monday soup and the daily bread and sibling squabbles and fierce love for one another...yeah, my home is basically the Burrow without the red hair, magical knitting needles, and garden gnomes. 

See? Stained glass! Also...just visible bald patch on floor, not covered by giant rug. Also...scraps for the chickens, tea cups, wine...and please don't zoom in on the dirty oven and grimy paint.

Last week, when I excitedly cracked open my copy of Haley Stewart's new book, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in a Throwaway Culture, I laughed when I noticed the title of Chapter 11: "Living the Gospel, Molly Weasley-Style." Then I almost cried when I actually read the chapter, because it spoke so directly to both my insecurities about my home and my hope for what I want it to be. Paragraphs like the following left me misty-eyed:

"The Weasleys are fictional characters from a fantasy series, yet they live out the truth of the Gospel to a surprising degree. While their merits include sacrificing their safety in order to fight evil and injustice, their virtues are even evident in the more mundane daily practices in their home. In addition to the fierce and devoted love Arthur and Molly Weasley offer each other and their children, their home is a haven for the marginalized. Forgotten people who have nowhere else to go find a place at their kitchen table. It's easy to imagine Molly Weasley adding a little water to the soup after welcoming an unexpected guest, trusting that there will always be enough. Their home is a beautiful example of what Christian hospitality should be."

Very much a first draft, included in the interest of not letting perfection become the enemy of the good.

This reminds me of a brilliant quote I discovered last year, from another insightful writer (Albert Einstein): 

"If most of us are ashamed by shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies." 

I came across these words just when I needed them most, and they reminded me that perfect kitchen floors and pristine wardrobes don't even begin to tip the scale against children who love God and each other and a family whose creativity and service makes a mess in the living room on a regular basis. 

I would like to point out, that while it was sloppily left out, the fact that the vacuum is in this picture is evidence that I do actually clean my floors from time to time, contrary to what you might think if you visited. (Such is life with a violin-making-shop off the kitchen: full of wood shavings.) Also...blurriness because the camera lens is a little shattered. Oh well. I bet the Weasleys couldn't afford a new one either.

That theme, of embracing simplicity and eschewing what the world sees as success in order to live a full life in accordance with God's will for us, is the central point of Haley's book. It's a message so important in today's world...where big families are blamed for the declining natural resources while the average 3.1-person-Perfect American Household consumes and tosses and moves on. (I've written about this before.) That isn't to say that big families like mine don't have a ways to go--and that's why The Grace of Enough is so important for all of us. I can think of no better way to give you a hint of the riches in its pages than by quoting a few [awesome] chapter titles:

"No Turning Back: Trading Security for Togetherness"

"Nurturing a Wondrous Love for the Land"

"Rediscovering Beauty by Attending to the Transcendent"

"Holy Hospitality: Welcoming Christ in the Stranger"

"The Internet: Isolator or Community Builder?"

"Choosing Hope in a Dark World"

Haley Stewart's writing is open and friendly, even while challenging you to embrace the madness of a life deemed crazy by most of society. Like the Flannery O'Connor quote she references, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." But who wouldn't want to be odd, if that means finding the joy of a purpose-filled life, a close family, a love for the earth, and a love affair with its Creator? With "odd" encompassing all of that, who'd want to be perfectly normal (thank you very much)?