The sustainable home

After two days of being away from home and working in my voluntary job, I'm back home in my haven today. I really do feel this is my haven here - every home should feel like that. When I talk with the people who come into our Centre for help, I silently wish I could place everyone of them into a warm and loving home. Such homes can heal and provide not only a safe haven from the outside world but also give significant emotional comfort. Early on in my journey towards a simpler life, being at the Centre help me understand the true value of my home. Seeing people who had no home, and those who live in dysfunctional homes, gave me a very clear understanding of how I wanted my home to be. I wanted a home that sustained us and everyone who visited us.

Picture from Allposters.com

A sustainable home is not necessarily the biggest and best house in the street; this kind of home is not identified by the look of it. To me, the worth of this home is judged by the way people live in their homes, how they share their lives, by what they give importance to, by the way they model behaviour to the members of their clan, by the boundaries they set, by the work they do to provide that nurturing space and possibly by a hundred other things that are more difficult to define, but responsibility, respect, warmth, generosity, kindness and care need to be in the mix.

One thing is for sure, sustainable homes are not created by filling them with expensive appliances, furniture and other symbols of material "success". Their character is much more complex. The chief ingredients for making a home that sustains and nurtures are the people who live there, the feelings they have for each other and the way they express those feelings. I wish that every home was a sustainable one but sadly that is not the case. It's not even close to it.

I am sure that many people who start out on life with a partner think the hard part will be working to equip and furnish their home and being able to buy the things that will make them happy. I believe that is a shallow kind of happiness, if it is happiness at all. The really difficult part of life with a partner, setting up home and being a parent is to provide a decent home that provides support, nourishment, protection and security. It should be the one place where the family know with absolute certainty that they are loved, where they can be their true selves, can recuperate from being at school or at work, and have fun, help, be productive and creative and learn how to live. The home is where children should learn their values and where parents should always strive to live by theirs. It's complex, is not just bricks and mortar.

It doesn't matter what stage of life you're at, keep your eye on the prize. The prize is not an having an outstanding house, it's having an outstanding family and home. And it's tough to juggle life, family, home, money, friends, hopes and wishes, and sometimes you fail. But in those times when it comes together, when you look and see what you hope to see, when you realise that repeating that suggestion over and over has finally paid off, when you hear a quiet "I love you" and know it is meant in its truest sense, when you want to announce to the world what a wonderful family you have but instead keep it inside you to nourish and grow, when you think you've failed but realise you haven't, when you put the family to bed at night and sit, content, those are the times that will make up for the uncertainty and toughness of it all. And as I look back on my life of family and home building I know for sure that it was not just the good times that made us what we are today, it was the hard times too.

I know we don't get a lot of encouragement to build stable and happy families. The encouragement seems to be focused on success, creating wealth, spending to help the nation and acquisition, and while those elements may have some importance, they are secondary. Our real mission is to build productive and healthy families, that will create productive and healthy communities, that combined together build the nation. I am here to gently encourage and remind you that what you do at home is significant and meaningful, and that creating a sustainable home provides the ideal environment for your family to thrive in.