Community of Home

I live in an Upstate New York town where community is everything. Our School District is top notch and we aim to keep it that way (Go Wildcats!).  We support local shops in our community.  We cheer for our college sports team (Go Orange!).  Local groups organize clean-up days and plant-a-tree days.  We organize “Fun Runs” for local families in need and for the park down the street that needs renovating.  We go to our PTA meetings and vote for our local officials and school budgets, faithfully.  Ok you get it, right?  We are committed to our community.  It truly is a beautiful place to live.

Community though isn’t one faceted.  It encompasses not only where we live but where we worship and where we work.  We spend an enormous amount of our 24/7 investing in our worlds and are in constant motion doing it.

But what about the community in our homes? How much time do we spend investing in that world?  That’s a tough one.  Generally there’s nothing bad about all the time we spend investing in all our "communities".  But what if it takes away from our investment in the lives of our kids, our spouses, our own health and well being? What if it takes away from spending time at home allowing our children to interact with each other, giving them time for conversation and connecting with us?  Or if it takes away from time for you and your spouse to sit, talk about your day and even have time alone (so needed in our marriages today)?  We should think of our homes like “safe” in a giant game of tag rather than a hotel where we go to eat and sleep.

Please understand, I do not say these things to preach at you.  I say them because I am the product of a family structure where community meant everywhere else but, home.  My parents efforts outside the home were note-worthy and productive.  They had influence and title.  But, I have five siblings and really only know one of them.  I didn’t have your typical Mom/Daughter relationship as a kid.  My Dad, though a great man, rarely knew what was going on in my life.  I was never taught how to make home a priority or how to make my marriage a priority.  It was go, go, go all the time.   Home was just for sleeping and eating.

Now I have five kids.  I know now the pull towards wanting to be part of the community of school, church and work.  If that’s where everyone is, that’s where we want to be.  I know the stress of life and the pull towards more and better and promotion.  But at what cost?  My marriage?  My children’s relationships with each other or with us?  Their feeling of having that “safe” place to run to?  My own mental and physical health?  

It’s a go, go, go world.  Even more than when we were kids and it’s only getting faster.  We live in an amazing time where we and our children have so much opportunity right at our finger tips.  But the faster the world goes, the greater effort we have to make to slow down and enjoy life, at home.   It’s a long term investment but the dividends are exponential when multiplied by the lives in our home.  

There’s a wall hanging you have probably seen at the store or on Pinterest.  It puts the “Community of Home” perfectly:

Our Family is a circle of love - with every challenge faced - every blessing celebrated - and every joy shared.  Our circle is strengthened together - we are unbreakable.  Family Is Forever.