The aim of Gospel Around Us has always been to link faith to the common things of life and, in this post, I'm exploring links with something most of us do many times in a day ... never mind in the whole of life. How often do you go through a door and close it behind you? It may be when you pass from one room to another in your home, or at work; the door may have a self-closer, so it shuts automatically behind you. It might be to join others, or to be alone away from them; it could be that, at the end of a hard day, you pass through your front door, lean back on its strength and say, "Thank goodness that's over!"
'An Englishman's home is his castle', so it is said. It was established in common law in the seventeenth century and William Pitt (the elder) said in 1763, "The poorest man may, in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of England may not enter!" It's every young couple's dream, as they prepare for marriage, to have a home of their own, a front door that they can enter and lock behind them, secure from the rest of the world.
My attention was drawn recently to King David, and the Lord's promises related to him by Nathan the prophet, of which we can read in 2 Samuel ch. 7. Verse 10 has particular significance just now: "I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed." In discussion at the time, we appreciated that this verse is held to support Israeli claims on the West Bank and justify their settlements there, in contravention of a UN Resolution.
There is another political, and even more topical relevance, as Brexit takes effect and potentially hardens the borders of our own country against the rest of the world. We also related the verse more generally to the security offered by 'a home of our own'.
Paul, writing to the Corinthians, spoke of 'less honourable or unpresentable parts', that were 'treated with special honour or modesty' (1 Cor. 12:22-23). Was he talking about anatomy or elements of our behaviour? Either way, there are certainly things we would only do in the secure privacy of our own home. I won't embarrass my reader by offering a list. In centuries past, monarchs would invite nobles to attend their 'levée', or dressing. This started in France and Louis XIV raised it to a ceremonial level. It spread to England under Charles II, and thence to America, but had all but died out by the end of the eighteenth century.
You'll be glad to learn I'm not advocating the revival of the levée, but I wonder whether we might guard too carefully the secure nature of our homes. I recall a time in my accounting career when I had been accorded the privilege of an office of my own on the first floor. Not only did my position bring responsibility for a room full of people on the ground floor of the same building, but also for similar offices in two other towns. I found the isolation of my own office very counter-productive and it was easier to control the two outlying offices by driving there and working on the side of someone else's desk than it was the people at my 'home base'.
Perhaps there are times when we should think 'outside the box', as it were, both as individuals and as a nation. By valuing too highly the privacy of home, are we overlooking the potential benefits of having visitors? Instead of holding meetings in a public hall or across the table at the pub, should we consider inviting the participants to our lounge? I realise that for some of us, by virtue of our domestic situation, this would be impossible, but for others, it might prove beneficial. At a national level, have we forgotten the humanitarian kudos we earned in 1939 with Kindertransport? Should we be opening our borders to more refugees, rather than 'battening down the hatches'?
Are security and isolation two opposing sides of the same coin? Can we be paying too high a social price for our security?
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