August 2, 2007

• Kitchen Project – Silver and Linens

  
  Ironing is a bit like cooking.
  You can certainly live without doing it,
  but you occasionally suspect that
  the time you save isn’t worth
  what you sacrifice.
  What you give up is this:
  a small, but indelible act of grace.

  ~ Monica Nassif in Laundry, The Spirit of Keeping Home

  
  
  The fact that you are a Christian should show
  in some practical area of a growing
  creativity and sensitivity to beauty,
  rather than in a gradual drying up of creativity,
  and a blindness to ugliness.

  ~  Edith Schaeffer in The Hidden Art of Homemaking

  

  It is scarcely surprising then, that so many people
  imagine housekeeping to be boring,
  frustrating, repetitive, unintelligent drudgery.
  I cannot agree.
  Each of its regular routines brings satisfaction
  when it is completed. These routines echo the rhythm of life,
  and the housekeeping rhythm is the rhythm of the body.
  You get satisfaction not only from the sense of order,
  cleanliness, freshness, peace and plenty restored,
  but from the knowledge that you yourself
  and those you care about are going to enjoy these benefits.

  ~ Cheryl Mendelson in Home Comforts

  

  Baking bread, weaving cloth, putting up preserves,
  teaching and singing to children,
  must have been far more nourishing
  than being the family chauffeur or shopping at super-markets,
  or doing housework with mechanical aids.
  The art and craft of housework has diminished;
  much of the time-consuming drudgery–
  despite modern advertising to the contrary-remains.
  In housework, as in the rest of life,
  the curtain of mechanization has come down
  between the mind and the hand.

  ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh  in Gift from the Sea
  
  

  Ideas inspired from these authors,
  which have been percolating for some time,
  are coming to fruition.

  My tall son emptied the cupboard above the fridge –
  a tottering pile of tarnished silver.
  As I polished each piece I thought of ways
  to incorporate these beautiful wedding gifts
  into our life more regularly beginning now.

  My favorite piece is this bread plate.
  This month I’m baking the communion bread for our church.
  This Lord’s Day I will put the loaves on silver plates.

  

  I found cloth napkins in four (!) different cupboards and drawers.
  Using the container principle, I found a large basket to hold them.
  I touched them all up and folded them uniformly.

  
  

  

  Lost treasures (birthday placemat) were uncovered.

  

  A table runner from Ecuador, never used. Aren’t the colors magnificent?

  

  With boys grown and gone, I have room in our guest room closet to hang the tablecloths …

  

  …leaving room in this cupboard for my basket of napkins and runners.

  

  Drudgery?  Are you kidding?  Glory!!
  It’s amazing
  how invigorating,
  how liberating,
   how energizing
   clean can be.

  Thank you, Lord!

  
  

  • 11:27 am
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