There’s a razor-thin line between losing and misplacing. I am the king of misplacement. I regularly misplace my keys, misplace my bank cards, misplace books, misplace my shoes. This morning, I was shuffling through my math notebook because I’d misplaced the previous day’s page of notes.
But a misplaced thing might as well be lost. My page of Pre-Calculus notes was right there in the notebook (and I knew it!), but they were as good as lost until I spent five minutes of intentional rifling and page-flipping. Only then did I finally recover the sheet of misplaced trig proofs.
There’s a book that might as well be lost for how badly it’s been misplaced: Edith Shaeffer’s The Hidden Art of Homemaking. The back cover, as featured on the Amazon preview, sorts the book into this category: Home Management.
A greater misplacement I know not.
I’ve saved you the trouble of digging through the categories, sub-categories, etc. of Amazon. This is not a home management book—though there are plenty of thoughts about little ways to make a home. Schaeffer’s gentle reflections on the power of place and artful living go far beyond managing weekly cooking schedules or how to do the laundry. They form a philosophy of creaturehood.
What does it mean to be finite beings living for a finite span in a finite space—yet made in the image of an infinite Creator God?
In short, it means we make a home. And God has given us talents, resources, time, people, and loves—albeit all limited—so that we can join him in the delight of homemaking. Shaeffer writes,
“A Christian who realizes he has been made in the image of the Creator God, and is therefore meant to be creative on a finite level, should certainly have more understanding of his responsibility to treat God’s creation with sensitivity, and should develop his talents to do something to beautiful his little spot on earth’s surface.”
We all want to change the world, but where are the men and women, the little boys and little girls who are brave and fearless enough to beautify their little spots on earth with their own artful creativity? Our Creator has planted each of us in some valley or mountainside or patch of sunlight. We were made to bear fruit, each according to our kind—fruit that He wants to taste, fruit that blesses the neighborhood, fruit that only we can produce.
There is a hidden art to being creatures. When we find ourselves wrist deep in acts of creativity, we will find that we have been imitating our Creator—and that we’re rediscovering the home we lost . . . or perhaps just misplaced.
(watercolor by Bethany Meacham)
A Hidden Baking Gem
Tucked into the Ohio River Valley just outside downtown Pittsburgh is our favorite supplier of baking pans: USA PAN.
USA PAN products are easy to spot from their distinctive corrugated metal. They’re durable, slick, and make for consistent bakes.
Family living near the plant have picked up all sorts of doughnut pans, bread pans, and muffin tins for us from their annual bargain sales. We aren’t getting any kickbacks! Just sharing a fav that lies a bit off the beaten path.