What do you think?
Rate this book
Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home
To be human is to long for home. Home is our most fundamental human longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This book connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome―and a church commissioned with this same work.
"Many of us seem to be recovering the sacred, if ordinary, beauty of place," writes author Jen Pollock Michel. "Perhaps we're reading along with Wendell Berry, falling in love with Berry's small-town barber and Jayber Crow's small-town life. . . . Or maybe we're simply reading our Bibles better, discovering that while we might wish to flatten Scripture to serve our didactic purposes, it rises up in flesh and sinew, muscle and bone: God's holy story is written in the lives of people and their places."
Including a five-session discussion guide and paired with a companion DVD, Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home.
"Many of us seem to be recovering the sacred, if ordinary, beauty of place," writes author Jen Pollock Michel. "Perhaps we're reading along with Wendell Berry, falling in love with Berry's small-town barber and Jayber Crow's small-town life. . . . Or maybe we're simply reading our Bibles better, discovering that while we might wish to flatten Scripture to serve our didactic purposes, it rises up in flesh and sinew, muscle and bone: God's holy story is written in the lives of people and their places."
Including a five-session discussion guide and paired with a companion DVD, Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home.
237 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2017
56 people are currently reading
968 people want to read
About the author
Jen Pollock Michel
13 books133 followersJen Pollock Michel is the award-winning author of Teach Us to Want, Keeping Place, and Surprised by Paradox. Her fourth book, A Habit Called Faith, releases in February 2021.
Jen holds a B.A. in French from Wheaton College and an M.A. in Literature from Northwestern University. She's currently enrolled in the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University.
An American living in Toronto, Jen is a wife and mother of five. She is the lead editor for Imprint magazine, published by The Grace Centre for the Arts, and host of the Englewood Review of Books podcast. You can follow Jen on Twitter @jenpmichel and also subscribe to her monthly letter, Post Script, at www.jenpollockmichel.com.
Jen holds a B.A. in French from Wheaton College and an M.A. in Literature from Northwestern University. She's currently enrolled in the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University.
An American living in Toronto, Jen is a wife and mother of five. She is the lead editor for Imprint magazine, published by The Grace Centre for the Arts, and host of the Englewood Review of Books podcast. You can follow Jen on Twitter @jenpmichel and also subscribe to her monthly letter, Post Script, at www.jenpollockmichel.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
March 22, 2017
The Inklings were, one and all, guilty of the heresy of the Happy Ending. They rejected the modernist aesthetic of dissonance and estrangement, and instead longed to reclaim a world of beauty and goodness-a world of enchantment. In their stories of hobbits and orcs, fauns and beavers and Father Christmas, Tolkien and Lewis told the story of home as the Scriptures tell it: the world has fallen from its original perfection, but it will one day be restored. The enduring legacy of these stories testify to the resonance of their hope. Humans long for the thaw of winter and the return of the King. They want to go home.
Do you long for home? A place of peace, acceptance, purpose and calling. Jen Pollock Michel speaks in a narration that is profoundly poetic on what home really is and how we long for it. It made me think of my own short comings and disappointments that all point to my longing of home and how I fall short of being home. I have come to find out that I need a better understanding of what home is. With that understanding, I can focus on what is important and leave behind what hinders me.
The text is done in two parts. The welcome of home - speaks to our longing, the history , the maker of home, moving from home to home, and the imperishable home.
The 2nd part refers to the work of home that speaks to our labor of home done in love, the church, the marriage and how we continually say I do., feasting together, a place of rest and how we finally make it "home". Each of these expresses the gospel in sound ways that you are living the gospel out.
Some of the quotes that I found encouraging that speaks of home.
Are we engaged in efforts that are relevant to the groans of creation and the cries of the poor? Are we producing disciples whose work is contributing to profound transformation that set people dancing in the streets. Have we joined King Jesus on his grand, sweeping mission of restoration. These are the questions for the church related to housekeeping. They remind us that we make a home for the wandering lost in our cities not simply by throwing open our church doors but by identifying and attending to their most desperate need.
Marriage isn't everything. It isn't our home or final hope. Nevertheless, it is worth the routine work of "I do". After all, marriage is its own kind of stability.
This study is upside down when it comes to our culture as it should be. It is community minded, not individualized. We were created to not be alone but to be home. One of the AHA moments for me was the discussion of the Sabbath. God created Sabbath for our good to meet our spiritual needs and our physical needs. Sabbath is shown in creation as well. Without the rest of land, we have the danger of creating what happened in the 1930's. The land requires rest just as we do. But the aha moment for me was Sabbath reflects the character of God and his goodness. When I truly practice the Sabbath, I truly experience the presence of God. Another insightful was the work of keeping house. We need housekeeping and we need to embrace it for our good. The stats that Jen shared are staggering and it made me think that any depression that I may suffer is my lack of good housekeeping. Housekeeping is not just a woman's job but as a family unit, housekeeping is living out the gospel.
Jen also shares insightful bible study as she goes through each chapter along with her own personal journey of home. I highly recommend this book for both men and women in their desire to come home.
A Special Thank You to Intervarsity Press and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
Do you long for home? A place of peace, acceptance, purpose and calling. Jen Pollock Michel speaks in a narration that is profoundly poetic on what home really is and how we long for it. It made me think of my own short comings and disappointments that all point to my longing of home and how I fall short of being home. I have come to find out that I need a better understanding of what home is. With that understanding, I can focus on what is important and leave behind what hinders me.
The text is done in two parts. The welcome of home - speaks to our longing, the history , the maker of home, moving from home to home, and the imperishable home.
The 2nd part refers to the work of home that speaks to our labor of home done in love, the church, the marriage and how we continually say I do., feasting together, a place of rest and how we finally make it "home". Each of these expresses the gospel in sound ways that you are living the gospel out.
Some of the quotes that I found encouraging that speaks of home.
Are we engaged in efforts that are relevant to the groans of creation and the cries of the poor? Are we producing disciples whose work is contributing to profound transformation that set people dancing in the streets. Have we joined King Jesus on his grand, sweeping mission of restoration. These are the questions for the church related to housekeeping. They remind us that we make a home for the wandering lost in our cities not simply by throwing open our church doors but by identifying and attending to their most desperate need.
Marriage isn't everything. It isn't our home or final hope. Nevertheless, it is worth the routine work of "I do". After all, marriage is its own kind of stability.
This study is upside down when it comes to our culture as it should be. It is community minded, not individualized. We were created to not be alone but to be home. One of the AHA moments for me was the discussion of the Sabbath. God created Sabbath for our good to meet our spiritual needs and our physical needs. Sabbath is shown in creation as well. Without the rest of land, we have the danger of creating what happened in the 1930's. The land requires rest just as we do. But the aha moment for me was Sabbath reflects the character of God and his goodness. When I truly practice the Sabbath, I truly experience the presence of God. Another insightful was the work of keeping house. We need housekeeping and we need to embrace it for our good. The stats that Jen shared are staggering and it made me think that any depression that I may suffer is my lack of good housekeeping. Housekeeping is not just a woman's job but as a family unit, housekeeping is living out the gospel.
Jen also shares insightful bible study as she goes through each chapter along with her own personal journey of home. I highly recommend this book for both men and women in their desire to come home.
A Special Thank You to Intervarsity Press and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
June 27, 2018
What a gem! I thought this book would be about the dignity and love that is inherent in the less-than-glamorous work of making a home, but it is about so much more. It is about the gospel -- God as our homemaker, home-bringer, and homecoming. The broken home that God rescues us from and the final restoration of home we look forward to. Michel's exegesis blew me away!
May 26, 2017
I may not agree with everything Jen writes (or believes) theologically, but she's an outstanding writer. This story of home is well researched, well told and well worth any (Christian) reader's time.
April 5, 2019
One of the best Christian books I've read in a long time. Michel follows the themes of home, homesickness, exile, rest, and keeping house through the Bible. It's profound, but immediate and familiar. She interweaves illustrations from her childhood and current life that help the reader understand where the ideas matter. Readable, practical, thoughtful. I'll refer to it over and over.
It also has discussion questions in the back and would make a wonderful book for discussion.
It also has discussion questions in the back and would make a wonderful book for discussion.
May 8, 2024
4.5 stars LOVED this book! For me, this was definitely a case of the right book at the right time, it was so timely that in several places it cause me to catch my breath.
Finally, a book about "home" from a Christian perspective that delves into the topic using the bible as a whole and not just isolated, taken out of context "women in the home" verses. Such a breath of fresh air and so deeply thoughtful and challenging. I finished the last page and immediately opened the first page of another book from her.
Christian women need more writers like Jen Pollock Michel - biblical, full of grace, challenging and not condescending. This is so much more than a book about home, which is why I think "Keeping PLACE" is such an appropriate title. I am planning to use the book as a study for our women's group. (Also, as an aside, this is a book I would happily pass on to a male reader, as I believe it would challenge their perspective on home too!).
I will leave you with my favourite passage in the book (the context is the story of Jacob, displaced at Bethel):
"God offered us stability in the only thing that cannot fail - God's faithfulness itself. Under a moonless sky, a placeless man gains hope, a nameless place, a name. The place becomes Bethel, the "house of God." Bethel reveals that God is present in every liminal place, lending his anchoring weight to our weightless lives. Our in-between places - between jobs, between cities, between houses - can easily feel like a bookmark, as if their only job was separating past from future. But these places are indeed part of the story, even when we have failed to give them a name. And most peculiarly, a generic, in-between place can even become a temple in the desert - a house of God. A nameless place can be the site of tentatively taking our first step toward trust; it's at Bethel that we can begin believing in a God who journeys with us."
I am going to print this out and stick it in my journal because I know that, just as in the moment I read it, also in the months and years ahead I will need to come back to this reminder.
Finally, a book about "home" from a Christian perspective that delves into the topic using the bible as a whole and not just isolated, taken out of context "women in the home" verses. Such a breath of fresh air and so deeply thoughtful and challenging. I finished the last page and immediately opened the first page of another book from her.
Christian women need more writers like Jen Pollock Michel - biblical, full of grace, challenging and not condescending. This is so much more than a book about home, which is why I think "Keeping PLACE" is such an appropriate title. I am planning to use the book as a study for our women's group. (Also, as an aside, this is a book I would happily pass on to a male reader, as I believe it would challenge their perspective on home too!).
I will leave you with my favourite passage in the book (the context is the story of Jacob, displaced at Bethel):
"God offered us stability in the only thing that cannot fail - God's faithfulness itself. Under a moonless sky, a placeless man gains hope, a nameless place, a name. The place becomes Bethel, the "house of God." Bethel reveals that God is present in every liminal place, lending his anchoring weight to our weightless lives. Our in-between places - between jobs, between cities, between houses - can easily feel like a bookmark, as if their only job was separating past from future. But these places are indeed part of the story, even when we have failed to give them a name. And most peculiarly, a generic, in-between place can even become a temple in the desert - a house of God. A nameless place can be the site of tentatively taking our first step toward trust; it's at Bethel that we can begin believing in a God who journeys with us."
I am going to print this out and stick it in my journal because I know that, just as in the moment I read it, also in the months and years ahead I will need to come back to this reminder.
May 22, 2021
"The desire for home is a good desire, and the Bible assures us that if we want home, we shall have it. Just not in this life."
From Genesis to Revelation, the topic of "home" weaves its way throughout the entire narrative of Scripture. Yet, it remains a topic woefully underdeveloped in Christianity today. Thankfully, Jen Pollock Michel is changing that with this book. With elegant prose and theological finesse, Michel exposes readers to the restlessness we all feel, one she pinpoints as our yearning for the home lost in Eden and promised through faith in Jesus Christ. Divided into two parts, "Keeping Place" describes both the story of home as well as the role we play in it here an now. We all crave a home, but to long for it faithfully means to bear witness to the true story of home—God’s welcome, our rebellion, and the hope of one day dwelling in the full presence of the Homemaker through faith in Jesus Christ.
Adding to the robust theology throughout, Michel invites readers into her own story of loss and longing, which causes Keeping Place to read with a depth foreign to much of Christian publishing these days. I can't commend this book highly enough. It's one men and women alike would do well to read for the sake of enriching their love and longing for the home promised in Christ.
From Genesis to Revelation, the topic of "home" weaves its way throughout the entire narrative of Scripture. Yet, it remains a topic woefully underdeveloped in Christianity today. Thankfully, Jen Pollock Michel is changing that with this book. With elegant prose and theological finesse, Michel exposes readers to the restlessness we all feel, one she pinpoints as our yearning for the home lost in Eden and promised through faith in Jesus Christ. Divided into two parts, "Keeping Place" describes both the story of home as well as the role we play in it here an now. We all crave a home, but to long for it faithfully means to bear witness to the true story of home—God’s welcome, our rebellion, and the hope of one day dwelling in the full presence of the Homemaker through faith in Jesus Christ.
Adding to the robust theology throughout, Michel invites readers into her own story of loss and longing, which causes Keeping Place to read with a depth foreign to much of Christian publishing these days. I can't commend this book highly enough. It's one men and women alike would do well to read for the sake of enriching their love and longing for the home promised in Christ.
April 26, 2020
What a writer, such a gem of erudition
June 5, 2021
I first found out about this book from TCK Care the Podcast awhile back and was reminded that I needed to read it after Jen Pollock Michel’s lovely foreword to Greg Coles’s latest book. Not quite what I expected given the title (though the subtitle makes more sense in retrospect), but I’m grateful to have read it.* I quite appreciated the texts with which JPM is in conversation and her integration of them into her own writing (she writes like a charitable academic interlocutor, which I quite enjoy), and her honesty about the importance of housekeeping as well as the ways in which it does not come naturally to her was very encouraging to me. Likewise, her care for and attention to scripture are lovely. She made me want to really enter into the worlds of the biblical stories she was drawing from, and I don’t see how that could ever be a bad thing.
This is a book I will likely return to and glean more from a second go ‘round. As much as I love the series of addresses as a means of reflecting on different places that were a part of JPM’s journey toward Home, I’m not quite sure how well the structure of the book coheres as a whole (it truly is a series of reflections as the subtitle says), hence no fifth star. Despite that, I think encountering the content again would be worthwhile indeed.
*Well, I should say to have listened to it. I sprung for the audiobook as read by JPM herself, and that was a delightful element of the experience.
This is a book I will likely return to and glean more from a second go ‘round. As much as I love the series of addresses as a means of reflecting on different places that were a part of JPM’s journey toward Home, I’m not quite sure how well the structure of the book coheres as a whole (it truly is a series of reflections as the subtitle says), hence no fifth star. Despite that, I think encountering the content again would be worthwhile indeed.
*Well, I should say to have listened to it. I sprung for the audiobook as read by JPM herself, and that was a delightful element of the experience.
December 23, 2017
I found this book on The Englewood Review's "Advent Calendar 2017--Best Books of 2017!" Since the book seemed to be about the theology of home and the family and I am a new parent, I thought I should read it. I was delighted to find an audiobook on my library's Hoopla app. I ended up listening to much of the book while feeding my daughter her bottle!
Keeping Place is a bit of spiritual memoir, cultural critique, biblical studies, theology, and spirituality. Michel explains how Scripture begins with God making a home with humans and ends with God making a home with humans. God is the God of housekeeping. Other topics include parenting, marriage, the family, hospitality, belonging, and Sabbath-keeping. Michel weaves together all of these themes with references to C.S. Lewis, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Walter Brueggemann, Robert Alter, James K.A. Smith, and Andy Crouch.
If there is one key take-away for me, it is that housekeeping is a holy task.
Keeping Place is a bit of spiritual memoir, cultural critique, biblical studies, theology, and spirituality. Michel explains how Scripture begins with God making a home with humans and ends with God making a home with humans. God is the God of housekeeping. Other topics include parenting, marriage, the family, hospitality, belonging, and Sabbath-keeping. Michel weaves together all of these themes with references to C.S. Lewis, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Walter Brueggemann, Robert Alter, James K.A. Smith, and Andy Crouch.
If there is one key take-away for me, it is that housekeeping is a holy task.
May 26, 2017
All of us carry a deep longing for home. Michel writes, "Home represents humanity's most visceral ache—and our oldest desire." In Keeping Place, the author explores this longing and traces it directly back to our never-quite-satisfied hunger for God. Michel is one of the smartest writers of today and has an uncanny ability to tie seemingly disparate threads together in a way that brings readers to many AHA! moments. The book is thoughtful, rich, and incredibly hopeful. (And as usual, Michel is an exquisite writer.)
August 3, 2017
Keeping Place is an important book on the topic of home. Author Jen Pollock Michel writes about our longing for a place to belong. She weaves a history of home and the meaning of place through the stories of Scripture.
The second half of the book covers the work of home. Pollock bemoans the fact that "housework' and 'homemaking' are not always valued. She writes, "Housekeeping, as worship and work, rightly relates us to God as well as to our fellow humans." Keeping place is an important way to let the people in our lives know that they matter.
The book reminds us that we are all born with homesickness and that we will never be truly home until we reach the place Jesus is preparing for us in heaven. But, in the meantime, we can make our homes havens for our families and friends.
The second half of the book covers the work of home. Pollock bemoans the fact that "housework' and 'homemaking' are not always valued. She writes, "Housekeeping, as worship and work, rightly relates us to God as well as to our fellow humans." Keeping place is an important way to let the people in our lives know that they matter.
The book reminds us that we are all born with homesickness and that we will never be truly home until we reach the place Jesus is preparing for us in heaven. But, in the meantime, we can make our homes havens for our families and friends.
October 16, 2017
One of the best non-fiction "Christian living" books I've read in a while. I very much enjoyed the blend of memoir and Scripture analysis/reflection. I found this book refreshing in its examination of God as homemaker, the One who makes a home for his people. I listened to the audiobook, which is read very well by the author herself. Highly recommended.
dnf
July 1, 2020The subject seemed perfect for my life right now, but first I had a hard time connecting with the writing style, and then I felt she was twisting historical examples (which did actually have interesting points in themselves, I admit) to hint at positions I disagree with. Continuing would be a chore.
February 1, 2018
A beautiful reflection on our homesickness...
Jen Michel is a superb writer. Her word pictures make her stories come alive. The realities of homesickness and homelessness are heart truths. And the beauty of our true and lasting home beckons.
Jen Michel is a superb writer. Her word pictures make her stories come alive. The realities of homesickness and homelessness are heart truths. And the beauty of our true and lasting home beckons.
May 9, 2017
Jen Pollock Michel's beautiful, thoughtful, new book is rich with profound but accessible ideas about the physical, relational, and spiritual homes we make.
In Keeping Place we begin to understand why we long for home so deeply. Not just the houses we grew up in, the people with grew up with, but far deeper and wider, into nostalgia, grief, women's rights, church, marriage, sabbath rest, and heaven.
I have many ideas scribbled in the margins of my copy of Keeping Place. I need to spend much more time praying and writing about them. For now I can only imagine writing them in a journal, it will be so personal:
1. What roots have I dug up and transplanted at my 11 different addresses? What have I left behind? What have I lost? What can be found again to make my current Home thrive?
2. Can Home be more than one place? - Will my kids say they are from Georgia when they go to college? Or will they always say they're from Wheaton, Illinois? Have I finished grieving my (almost 2 years ago) move away?
3. Can I honestly say the Lord is my Home? That all my stuff, my identity, my love, and my service all fits into and under my relationship with the God who loves me?
4. How can I make Homemaking more worshipful as a creative, steadfast, and welcoming woman with generous service and firm boundaries? What new things can I try? What old things could I stop?
I enjoyed quietly reading Keeping Place by myself, carefully answering the study questions in the back, and praying through the tough answers. It also would be great for small groups, with or without the DVD.
In Keeping Place we begin to understand why we long for home so deeply. Not just the houses we grew up in, the people with grew up with, but far deeper and wider, into nostalgia, grief, women's rights, church, marriage, sabbath rest, and heaven.
I have many ideas scribbled in the margins of my copy of Keeping Place. I need to spend much more time praying and writing about them. For now I can only imagine writing them in a journal, it will be so personal:
1. What roots have I dug up and transplanted at my 11 different addresses? What have I left behind? What have I lost? What can be found again to make my current Home thrive?
2. Can Home be more than one place? - Will my kids say they are from Georgia when they go to college? Or will they always say they're from Wheaton, Illinois? Have I finished grieving my (almost 2 years ago) move away?
3. Can I honestly say the Lord is my Home? That all my stuff, my identity, my love, and my service all fits into and under my relationship with the God who loves me?
4. How can I make Homemaking more worshipful as a creative, steadfast, and welcoming woman with generous service and firm boundaries? What new things can I try? What old things could I stop?
I enjoyed quietly reading Keeping Place by myself, carefully answering the study questions in the back, and praying through the tough answers. It also would be great for small groups, with or without the DVD.
February 19, 2020
Excellent writing, content, exposition of Scripture and application of the gospel. A refreshing read and highly recommended.
August 26, 2017
I didn't love this book, but it has some solid material. I appreciated that it wasn't a Wendell Berry-esque adulation of place and rootedness--it comes, rather, from an author who's mostly lacked those things in her life, which gives some weight and texture to her reflections. It *is*, as the title suggests, more of a set of meditations on home and housekeeping than an argument or sustained exploration of a concept. Michel looks at some of our contemporary ambivalences about "home," at God as "housekeeper" throughout scripture, at our "housekeeping" in this life as we wait and work toward the stable, eternal home only God can provide. She does this through personal narrative, discussion of recent research and journalistic thinkpieces, references to literature, and biblical scholarship. Her writing style isn't my favorite--a touch too clever for my taste? I'm not sure--and her use of the phrase "the housekeeping" in the second half of the book was a bit distracting. I also thought she gave short shrift to the Puritan view of Sabbath-keeping. Overall, it has that serial feel that a lot of thematic, semi-autobiographical works of this kind tend to have--as if it might have worked a bit better as a blog series than as a book. But I appreciate her constant emphasis on Christ as the answer to our longings for home, in a way that will be tangibly satisfied someday, even if we only get a taste of it in this life.
A few quotes I liked:
"Our inbetween places--between jobs, between cities, between houses--can easily feel like a bookmark, as if their only job was separating past from future. But these places are indeed part of the story, even when we have failed to give them a name. And most peculiarly, a generic, in-between place can even become a temple in the desert--a house of God."
"God's work is not nearly as glamorous as our self-glorifying ambitions."
"Home, on this earth, is no perfect place, and one of our greatest acts of faithful courage might be abiding the weariness of imperfect company, both that of ourselves and others."
"Housekeeping is home's daily chore of faith, hope and love. It doesn't hold out for what might never be. Instead, it wrings good from what is."
A few quotes I liked:
"Our inbetween places--between jobs, between cities, between houses--can easily feel like a bookmark, as if their only job was separating past from future. But these places are indeed part of the story, even when we have failed to give them a name. And most peculiarly, a generic, in-between place can even become a temple in the desert--a house of God."
"God's work is not nearly as glamorous as our self-glorifying ambitions."
"Home, on this earth, is no perfect place, and one of our greatest acts of faithful courage might be abiding the weariness of imperfect company, both that of ourselves and others."
"Housekeeping is home's daily chore of faith, hope and love. It doesn't hold out for what might never be. Instead, it wrings good from what is."
June 25, 2018
I sometimes think that Goodreads ought to give me two ways to rate a book: what the book wants to be on its own terms, and whether I think the book is really something someone should spend time reading. On its own terms, and trying to apply John Updike's dictum that we shouldn't blame a book for not achieving what it didn't set out to achieve, I think Michel's book is OK; probably even good. Thinking of it as a series of meditations on the nature of home, the book embodies a vision of the dignity and even sacrality of home life, home work, and house keeping--understood as making a place for ourselves and those we love, perhaps even those we don't, in the world. In it, home becomes a metaphor for the work of the Church. And more than a metaphor. For Michel, "Christian men and women, praying for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, work to make it possible for all human beings to flourish--now and into eternity, Housekeeping, as an important dimension of the home story, insists that an in-between life must never be an idle one. To be blessed is to be sent." At its furthest reach, home is the be all and end all of our existence as Christian people; indeed as human beings:
This last statement reveals the deeper subterranean ambitions of this book, what it really wants to be despite it's fairly modest statement that it is merely a series of "reflections." It is a statement that the "home" is what the Christian life is about, that "HOME" write large is the Christian story.
This is a large, I would say grandiose, claim, and the book suffers for it. On the one hand, in terms of the book's composition, it is an overextended metaphor leading the author to make claims about the centrality of home in biblical narrative and ecclesiastical life that are finally strained beyond the breaking point of belief. Moreover there is all too little critical force attached to these reflections to make the kind of theological claim that she really wants to make plausible. There is all too little mention of all the ways that the biblical narrative disrupts and unsettles the idea of home and home making. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head, as he admonishes his followers to remember. If we take the words of Jesus seriously that all those gathered around him, at times by the hundreds or thousands, are his mother, brothers, and sisters, this makes the boundaries of home so permeable as to be dispersed into the solution of humanity in a way that the metaphor of home strains to accommodate. The people of Israel most often stumbled when they preferred the comforts of home to the arduousness of obedience. In the end the book is the apotheosis of home, but I find myself suspicious of every human metaphor made into a divine thing.
I read this book in the midst of a cranky mood about the world we're living in, and were it only for that fact I would do well to heed Updike's advice and not review the book at all; give the book it's two stars and move on. Nevertheless, as I write thousands of immigrants have left their homes and travelled on foot or hopping trains through unimaginable danger and deprivation to seek some degree of safety in a place called the United States--a place we call, perhaps ironically, the home of the brave. These mothers, fathers, and children come only to be imprisoned and separated at the hands of an agency we officially call Homeland Security. This disharmonious irony ought to call to mind the fact of how many evils in our world are done in the name of home and family, even of family values, whether their protection or their preservation. From the evils of Jim Crow segregation to the imperialism of Manifest Destiny, the primacy and protection of the (white) home and the (white) homeland--present or utopian--played a large, even a predominant part. Moreover, we have just lived through the wretched vision of the Baptist church struggling with whether and how to discipline a male leader who told women to stay in abusive homes for the greater glory of God. He is hardly the only one. The poet Warsan Shire reminds us home is not only the place that we long for, but the place we flee from, for our own lives and the lives of those we love:
I do not mean to imply by this statement or my mood, that the author or her more sympathetic readers are somehow in sympathy with the evils that have been wrought by white supremacy or by misogyny. Indeed, one of the best things about the book is the ways that it dignifies what is often, almost always, taken to be "women's work" in the making of home. I appreciated Michel's note that this was a fairly recent phenomenon in many ways, the responsibility of men for life at home being a theme to be found in earlier eras of human culture. (Even if, I would hasten to add, those cultures were usually no better at exhibiting the mutuality that Michel seems to long for, but never fully articulates). The book is earnest; there are scores of anecdotes and tidbits of practical advice that will help those that struggle with the difficulties of home life, and it will remind those who can hear it that all acts, great and small, are or can be acts of holiness that sanctify the world. Perhaps more importantly they are acts that aid us in the pursuit of holiness ourselves.
Nevertheless, I wonder what kind of faith it would take for us to stand on the Southern border and stretching out our arms, say, "These are my mother, brothers, and sisters." I am quite sure I do not yet have that faith, though I am shamed to say it. I do not think a theology that divinizes our middle class American notion of home, and seeks at all costs to protect and glorify it, is going to get us there.
As James K. A. Smith describes, we are "'narrative animals': we define who we are, and what we ought to do, on the basis of what story we see ourselves in" Home is that story.
And we are its witnesses.
This last statement reveals the deeper subterranean ambitions of this book, what it really wants to be despite it's fairly modest statement that it is merely a series of "reflections." It is a statement that the "home" is what the Christian life is about, that "HOME" write large is the Christian story.
This is a large, I would say grandiose, claim, and the book suffers for it. On the one hand, in terms of the book's composition, it is an overextended metaphor leading the author to make claims about the centrality of home in biblical narrative and ecclesiastical life that are finally strained beyond the breaking point of belief. Moreover there is all too little critical force attached to these reflections to make the kind of theological claim that she really wants to make plausible. There is all too little mention of all the ways that the biblical narrative disrupts and unsettles the idea of home and home making. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head, as he admonishes his followers to remember. If we take the words of Jesus seriously that all those gathered around him, at times by the hundreds or thousands, are his mother, brothers, and sisters, this makes the boundaries of home so permeable as to be dispersed into the solution of humanity in a way that the metaphor of home strains to accommodate. The people of Israel most often stumbled when they preferred the comforts of home to the arduousness of obedience. In the end the book is the apotheosis of home, but I find myself suspicious of every human metaphor made into a divine thing.
I read this book in the midst of a cranky mood about the world we're living in, and were it only for that fact I would do well to heed Updike's advice and not review the book at all; give the book it's two stars and move on. Nevertheless, as I write thousands of immigrants have left their homes and travelled on foot or hopping trains through unimaginable danger and deprivation to seek some degree of safety in a place called the United States--a place we call, perhaps ironically, the home of the brave. These mothers, fathers, and children come only to be imprisoned and separated at the hands of an agency we officially call Homeland Security. This disharmonious irony ought to call to mind the fact of how many evils in our world are done in the name of home and family, even of family values, whether their protection or their preservation. From the evils of Jim Crow segregation to the imperialism of Manifest Destiny, the primacy and protection of the (white) home and the (white) homeland--present or utopian--played a large, even a predominant part. Moreover, we have just lived through the wretched vision of the Baptist church struggling with whether and how to discipline a male leader who told women to stay in abusive homes for the greater glory of God. He is hardly the only one. The poet Warsan Shire reminds us home is not only the place that we long for, but the place we flee from, for our own lives and the lives of those we love:
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
I do not mean to imply by this statement or my mood, that the author or her more sympathetic readers are somehow in sympathy with the evils that have been wrought by white supremacy or by misogyny. Indeed, one of the best things about the book is the ways that it dignifies what is often, almost always, taken to be "women's work" in the making of home. I appreciated Michel's note that this was a fairly recent phenomenon in many ways, the responsibility of men for life at home being a theme to be found in earlier eras of human culture. (Even if, I would hasten to add, those cultures were usually no better at exhibiting the mutuality that Michel seems to long for, but never fully articulates). The book is earnest; there are scores of anecdotes and tidbits of practical advice that will help those that struggle with the difficulties of home life, and it will remind those who can hear it that all acts, great and small, are or can be acts of holiness that sanctify the world. Perhaps more importantly they are acts that aid us in the pursuit of holiness ourselves.
Nevertheless, I wonder what kind of faith it would take for us to stand on the Southern border and stretching out our arms, say, "These are my mother, brothers, and sisters." I am quite sure I do not yet have that faith, though I am shamed to say it. I do not think a theology that divinizes our middle class American notion of home, and seeks at all costs to protect and glorify it, is going to get us there.
June 28, 2017
If you like a book that is relatable but also meaty, one that will challenge as well as encourage you, I highly recommend this read. Michel brings together so many different voices into this dialogue and together they come to an understanding both our longing for home and how to be instruments in creating it. She includes psychological, theological, and literary perspectives and her own well-thought-through exegesis of the theme of "home" throughout scripture. I wish I could have a dialogue with Michel because though I don't always agree with her perspective (or at least the emphasis of it), she points the discussion right where it matters. I would recommend this to any follower of Christ in any season--Michel's idea of home goes deeper than the lines between married or single, home-body or traveler. I will be sending this along to bless other people in my life. It's the kind of book that needs to be shared and bonds people together.
You are invited to TheWillowNook.com for a full review.
*review copy courtesy of IVP Books*
You are invited to TheWillowNook.com for a full review.
*review copy courtesy of IVP Books*
July 18, 2021
Great idea, but I didn't love the execution.
June 13, 2017
A Theology of Home
Rootedness was always the thing that both repelled and intrigued me. I left my parents’ home at the age of seventeen and pictured a life unleashed — no commitments. I copied all my record albums onto small and portable cassette tapes (dinosaur alert!) and prepared for the unencumbered life. With that resolve in my rear view mirror, no one is more surprised than I am to have lived (happily) at the same address for 23 years, making a home and being re-made by the challenges and joys of home.
In Keeping Place, Jen Pollock Michel examines her own history of home and the continual need to cherish change which her life circumstances have fostered. She ponders the beauty of place, emphasizing that Scripture is “a home story” and that the truth of the gospel is best understood in terms of our yearning to belong, our struggle with homesickness, and the ache of all our longings.
History and literature attest to humanity’s desire for rootedness, and even the biblical narrative opens in a garden paradise and ends with the permanence, rest, and refuge of The New Jerusalem. The journey from Genesis to Revelation is a story of wandering, of nostalgia for a settled place . . . until God enters history at a particular time in a particular place so that He could “seek and save the lost.”
“According to Scripture, home is shared human work.”
Church leaders, then, become the managers of God’s household. Both male and female parents are given a role in the hard work of child rearing. Routine chores become an offering and a valued means to the greater end of fostering a sense of security and belonging.
God’s work in creation and in redemption is clearly housekeeping. He finds lost things, He prepares tables of abundance and blessing in hard places, He kills the fatted calf and invites the neighborhood to a party. Therefore, engineering the comforts of home, taking on the mess in the bottom of the refrigerator, performing the domestic routines that preserve order and hold chaos at bay create a feeling of home wherever they are performed with love, and they pre-figure God in His role as Homemaker.
Homemaking is a work of welcoming and provision.
Just as the incarnation brought dignity to the mortal body and to the notion of occupying a particular time and space, God’s compassionate homemaking sets the standard for the work of His women and men who long to create safe and welcoming spaces for His glory.
“Stability” is a term that occurs early and often in Keeping Place. Presenting as a spiritual discipline and as an opposite to rootlessness, it signifies a commitment to make a difference in a specific place and time. The paradox of the Christian life is this need for full investment, wherever we are, whatever our calling — in stark contrast to the need to also hold it all loosely.
“There is no controlling what we keep or for how long, and an earthly home is no measure of stability and safety, not really — not when lurking in the background of every day is the possibility that the phone will ring and life will lurch toward death.”
To be human is to long for home.
To be mortal is to be plagued by the impermanence of all that we hold dear.
The truth of resurrection, expressed in the language of Home, is that all the perished things will one day be restored, our need for belonging will be fulfilled at long last, and, in the meantime, the Word of God speaks truth into all of our longings and our losses, into all of our dreams of Home.
//
This book was provided by InterVarsity Press in exchange for my review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Rootedness was always the thing that both repelled and intrigued me. I left my parents’ home at the age of seventeen and pictured a life unleashed — no commitments. I copied all my record albums onto small and portable cassette tapes (dinosaur alert!) and prepared for the unencumbered life. With that resolve in my rear view mirror, no one is more surprised than I am to have lived (happily) at the same address for 23 years, making a home and being re-made by the challenges and joys of home.
In Keeping Place, Jen Pollock Michel examines her own history of home and the continual need to cherish change which her life circumstances have fostered. She ponders the beauty of place, emphasizing that Scripture is “a home story” and that the truth of the gospel is best understood in terms of our yearning to belong, our struggle with homesickness, and the ache of all our longings.
History and literature attest to humanity’s desire for rootedness, and even the biblical narrative opens in a garden paradise and ends with the permanence, rest, and refuge of The New Jerusalem. The journey from Genesis to Revelation is a story of wandering, of nostalgia for a settled place . . . until God enters history at a particular time in a particular place so that He could “seek and save the lost.”
“According to Scripture, home is shared human work.”
Church leaders, then, become the managers of God’s household. Both male and female parents are given a role in the hard work of child rearing. Routine chores become an offering and a valued means to the greater end of fostering a sense of security and belonging.
God’s work in creation and in redemption is clearly housekeeping. He finds lost things, He prepares tables of abundance and blessing in hard places, He kills the fatted calf and invites the neighborhood to a party. Therefore, engineering the comforts of home, taking on the mess in the bottom of the refrigerator, performing the domestic routines that preserve order and hold chaos at bay create a feeling of home wherever they are performed with love, and they pre-figure God in His role as Homemaker.
Homemaking is a work of welcoming and provision.
Just as the incarnation brought dignity to the mortal body and to the notion of occupying a particular time and space, God’s compassionate homemaking sets the standard for the work of His women and men who long to create safe and welcoming spaces for His glory.
“Stability” is a term that occurs early and often in Keeping Place. Presenting as a spiritual discipline and as an opposite to rootlessness, it signifies a commitment to make a difference in a specific place and time. The paradox of the Christian life is this need for full investment, wherever we are, whatever our calling — in stark contrast to the need to also hold it all loosely.
“There is no controlling what we keep or for how long, and an earthly home is no measure of stability and safety, not really — not when lurking in the background of every day is the possibility that the phone will ring and life will lurch toward death.”
To be human is to long for home.
To be mortal is to be plagued by the impermanence of all that we hold dear.
The truth of resurrection, expressed in the language of Home, is that all the perished things will one day be restored, our need for belonging will be fulfilled at long last, and, in the meantime, the Word of God speaks truth into all of our longings and our losses, into all of our dreams of Home.
//
This book was provided by InterVarsity Press in exchange for my review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
January 19, 2022
My Thoughts:
Michel writes that she never lived in one place for long to call home. I lived the opposite kind of life. My parents built a home large enough for their combined family of two adults and four children in 1962. This is the home I was raised in. I lived in that home until I married at age 18. Soon after my marriage we lived in that home almost a year. My parents sold the house in 1985. They moved to another city and built a home. My mother died in 2008. Daddy sold that home in 2011. I had lived with dad from 2002 until we sold that home in 2011 and moved to the current home my husband and I own. There were three apartments and two houses my husband and I and our children lived in between 1983 and 2011. The last home my parents built and owned from 1986 until 2011 was a second home to me. I helped dad take care of mother many years. I lived with and cared for my dad many years. I consider it a benefit that I have lived a life of stability and security in living in the same home from birth to marriage. The house was in a great neighborhood and within walking distance of the elementary school and high school. Our church was located in the neighborhood. For me, the home and schools and church were in a cocoon of stability. It was not a perfect life, but more positive benefits than negative.
I wonder what it is like for people (how it impacts them) to move often? I know people who grew up in a military family where they moved often. I know people who have been homeless. I know people who moved from family member to another family member because their parent was unable to care for them. I know people who for a time slept on couches or curled up in the corners of friends’ homes. I wonder what the social impact and emotional or mental impact is on a person who has lived like this? They don’t have a permanent place to call home.
This is a topic I have been curious about and this is a strong reason why I read Keeping Place.
I love this book for several reasons:
1. So much more has been brought into the topic of home (pleasant surprises.) For example, social media’s impact on how we view our real life, the journey of grief, and wanting to be somewhere else instead of satisfaction in where we are.
2. Life is worship, this includes everyday housework.
3. Marriage and its expectations and disappointments. This chapter looks at the homelife of David and his many wives and children.
4. Practice of Sabbath.
5. The desire for home and the various ways people search for a home in other things.
6. I feel Michel has written Keeping Place at least in some part to process and make peace with her own life.
A favorite quote:
“Homemaking, as a word to describe God’s labor on behalf of humanity, conveys the sense of God’s mindfulness toward the man and the woman he greets at the door.” Page 67.
Themes: marriage, family, grief, social media, suffering, loneliness, acceptance, hospitality, beauty, gratitude, hope, dreams, and wisdom.
Final Thoughts:
Even though I enjoyed reading this book, I do believe some of the themes need their own book. Keeping Place covers so much that I feel needs to be trimmed back a little. I’d like one entire book on “Chapter 8: Love and Marriage: The Routine Work of I Do.” David and his family are the Biblical story. This chapter explores disappointments and disillusionments in marriage. This is a huge topic that needs its own book.
Source: Self-purchase.
Audience: Readers interested in learning about aspects of homelife and home, and its impact in our lives.
Rating: Very good.
Michel writes that she never lived in one place for long to call home. I lived the opposite kind of life. My parents built a home large enough for their combined family of two adults and four children in 1962. This is the home I was raised in. I lived in that home until I married at age 18. Soon after my marriage we lived in that home almost a year. My parents sold the house in 1985. They moved to another city and built a home. My mother died in 2008. Daddy sold that home in 2011. I had lived with dad from 2002 until we sold that home in 2011 and moved to the current home my husband and I own. There were three apartments and two houses my husband and I and our children lived in between 1983 and 2011. The last home my parents built and owned from 1986 until 2011 was a second home to me. I helped dad take care of mother many years. I lived with and cared for my dad many years. I consider it a benefit that I have lived a life of stability and security in living in the same home from birth to marriage. The house was in a great neighborhood and within walking distance of the elementary school and high school. Our church was located in the neighborhood. For me, the home and schools and church were in a cocoon of stability. It was not a perfect life, but more positive benefits than negative.
I wonder what it is like for people (how it impacts them) to move often? I know people who grew up in a military family where they moved often. I know people who have been homeless. I know people who moved from family member to another family member because their parent was unable to care for them. I know people who for a time slept on couches or curled up in the corners of friends’ homes. I wonder what the social impact and emotional or mental impact is on a person who has lived like this? They don’t have a permanent place to call home.
This is a topic I have been curious about and this is a strong reason why I read Keeping Place.
I love this book for several reasons:
1. So much more has been brought into the topic of home (pleasant surprises.) For example, social media’s impact on how we view our real life, the journey of grief, and wanting to be somewhere else instead of satisfaction in where we are.
2. Life is worship, this includes everyday housework.
3. Marriage and its expectations and disappointments. This chapter looks at the homelife of David and his many wives and children.
4. Practice of Sabbath.
5. The desire for home and the various ways people search for a home in other things.
6. I feel Michel has written Keeping Place at least in some part to process and make peace with her own life.
A favorite quote:
“Homemaking, as a word to describe God’s labor on behalf of humanity, conveys the sense of God’s mindfulness toward the man and the woman he greets at the door.” Page 67.
Themes: marriage, family, grief, social media, suffering, loneliness, acceptance, hospitality, beauty, gratitude, hope, dreams, and wisdom.
Final Thoughts:
Even though I enjoyed reading this book, I do believe some of the themes need their own book. Keeping Place covers so much that I feel needs to be trimmed back a little. I’d like one entire book on “Chapter 8: Love and Marriage: The Routine Work of I Do.” David and his family are the Biblical story. This chapter explores disappointments and disillusionments in marriage. This is a huge topic that needs its own book.
Source: Self-purchase.
Audience: Readers interested in learning about aspects of homelife and home, and its impact in our lives.
Rating: Very good.
October 6, 2022
The one true God is a homemaking God - this is the overarching thesis of the author’s book. The danger, of course, of emphasising one motif is considerable, the result of which might lead to a kind of reductionism or contracting texts to fit one’s argument.
I think the author has produced an erudite, well-read, and careful work. The final chapter is superb. Borrowing from CS Lewis (and others) she deftly connects our home sickness with the promise of a true home and place.
But this isn’t a justification for escapism or avoiding the social and justice imperatives associated with living in this splendid but smudged present reality.
Her use of Scripture (in this topical study) struck me as judicious. Her insights into ‘domesticity’ are stimulating: both her reading of the Biblical texts and showing us how either male-dominated our readings can be or how post-World War 2 our cultural grids are when we read certain passages.
There were points when I personally couldn’t easily see the structure of her arguments- sometimes it seemed she was tangential. But more often than not even these tangents contained gems, even flashes of brilliance (especially her take on Jesus’ parables).
While she only slightly touched on the idea, I think she rightly suggests an interesting apologetic: the existential longing for a place or home.
An impressive and important work!
I think the author has produced an erudite, well-read, and careful work. The final chapter is superb. Borrowing from CS Lewis (and others) she deftly connects our home sickness with the promise of a true home and place.
But this isn’t a justification for escapism or avoiding the social and justice imperatives associated with living in this splendid but smudged present reality.
Her use of Scripture (in this topical study) struck me as judicious. Her insights into ‘domesticity’ are stimulating: both her reading of the Biblical texts and showing us how either male-dominated our readings can be or how post-World War 2 our cultural grids are when we read certain passages.
There were points when I personally couldn’t easily see the structure of her arguments- sometimes it seemed she was tangential. But more often than not even these tangents contained gems, even flashes of brilliance (especially her take on Jesus’ parables).
While she only slightly touched on the idea, I think she rightly suggests an interesting apologetic: the existential longing for a place or home.
An impressive and important work!
September 18, 2017
Jen Pollock Michel’s ponderings on home provide the perfect setting to reflect on the Kingdom of God. She creates beautiful word pictures to bring intangibles into focus. Weaving personal stories of loss as well as joy with biblical illustrations, she eased me into the deep waters of the theological pool.
Jen Pollock Michel’s writing caused me to pause after each chapter. The truths needed time to soak into my brain and then into my soul. While we wait for our true home in heaven, we have homes and housekeeping needing our attention. “God’s work is not nearly as glamorous as our self-glorifying ambitions…(yet) Housekeeping is home’s daily chore of faith, hope, and love” (p. 197).
Keeping Place is biblically-based and well-researched. The plethora of book references to historians, scholars, essayists, and novelists provide numerous places to puruse additional reading. I highly recommend Jen Pollock Michel’s second book, Keeping Place!
Jen Pollock Michel’s writing caused me to pause after each chapter. The truths needed time to soak into my brain and then into my soul. While we wait for our true home in heaven, we have homes and housekeeping needing our attention. “God’s work is not nearly as glamorous as our self-glorifying ambitions…(yet) Housekeeping is home’s daily chore of faith, hope, and love” (p. 197).
Keeping Place is biblically-based and well-researched. The plethora of book references to historians, scholars, essayists, and novelists provide numerous places to puruse additional reading. I highly recommend Jen Pollock Michel’s second book, Keeping Place!
March 29, 2018
As one who is demonstrably preoccupied with Home and homesickness, I loved this book. Michel's depth of historical study and the fascinating connections she makes between ideas and moments in time are so impressive. She writes like a scholar but not necessarily for scholars--she teases out universal themes and relates them to all of us. I listened to the audio version, so there is much I did not catch (a hazard of audio books), but I enjoyed it enough to covet a paper copy for my shelf, one to dog-ear and underline. From her early discussion of "nostalgia" (did you know homesickness was once considered a medical condition?) to her closing chapter on our forever Home, this is a great exploration of the human condition.
Read
December 22, 2021“..where God might have remained distant and removed from the mess we’d made of the world, he freely chose to enter it. The incarnation of God is the highest, holiest act of housekeeping. God clothed his transcendent being with human flesh and condescended to earth. Interestingly, immanence shares a Latin root with the word mansion…”
This book delivers on it’s promise - “reflections on the meaning of home.” Saturated with Scripture and filled with references to many other books (wow is JPM well read!), her reflections are beautifully interwoven with details of her own life and stories - highlighting the tension in living in a broken world. Definitely takes some focus to read, but we’ll worth the time.
This book delivers on it’s promise - “reflections on the meaning of home.” Saturated with Scripture and filled with references to many other books (wow is JPM well read!), her reflections are beautifully interwoven with details of her own life and stories - highlighting the tension in living in a broken world. Definitely takes some focus to read, but we’ll worth the time.
June 8, 2017
Helpful- expounds on the ideas that our longings show that we are made for another world, our homes and families here are just "inns along the way" (Keller) and cannot bear the weight of satisfying us, we are
made in the image of a "housekeeping/homemaking" God and set here and commissioned to His work. I liked the second half of the book the best, where she outlined the shape of this work. My favorite chapter was on sabbath rest. A few of my favorite thoughts: Rest apprentices us to let God love us apart from our efforts and contribution, and forces us to confront our disordered desires. And.....the benediction of home: it blesses and it SENDS.
made in the image of a "housekeeping/homemaking" God and set here and commissioned to His work. I liked the second half of the book the best, where she outlined the shape of this work. My favorite chapter was on sabbath rest. A few of my favorite thoughts: Rest apprentices us to let God love us apart from our efforts and contribution, and forces us to confront our disordered desires. And.....the benediction of home: it blesses and it SENDS.
June 25, 2017
Jen Pollock Michel is an incredibly gifted writer. Her theology continues to be somewhat right of my own mainline tradition, but her work inspires, instructs, and challenges me in so many ways. Lots to treasure in this book. She's particularly skilled at weaving her own reflections in with varied voices from literature and theology. Best chapter was on the "unyielding obligations of love's housekeeping." "It is a logical impossibility to love my children and refuse to provide them lunch. To love is to labor."
But my favorite line in the whole book? "The feast preaches."
But my favorite line in the whole book? "The feast preaches."
February 28, 2018
You know when you finish reading a book and then immediately realize you should read it again? This is that kind of book!
As a person who lived abroad for a decade and still struggles with finding a sense of "home", Jen Michel's book really hit a nerve. In a good way.
Beautifully written with solid theological references, and inspiring thoughts-- this book did a great job of showing how home is a place we all long for and how we can create such spaces.
I am not a homemaker, or a wife or a mother, yet found there were so many things I could relate to and take away with me.
As a person who lived abroad for a decade and still struggles with finding a sense of "home", Jen Michel's book really hit a nerve. In a good way.
Beautifully written with solid theological references, and inspiring thoughts-- this book did a great job of showing how home is a place we all long for and how we can create such spaces.
I am not a homemaker, or a wife or a mother, yet found there were so many things I could relate to and take away with me.
April 4, 2018
Why don't you people tell me about these things? Adding this to my top 20 parish reads: https://bit.ly/2FOypQa
I've been waiting for a book like this ever since Tim Soerens and I interviewed Brian Walsh on the theme of homemaking. Jen Pollock Michel already won book of the year at Christianity Today with her first book Teach Us To Want. Keeping Place is meaningful storytelling and a deep theology of place. The writing is exceptional "skilled and hypnotic prose" and the research is expansive. I will be returning to this book!
I've been waiting for a book like this ever since Tim Soerens and I interviewed Brian Walsh on the theme of homemaking. Jen Pollock Michel already won book of the year at Christianity Today with her first book Teach Us To Want. Keeping Place is meaningful storytelling and a deep theology of place. The writing is exceptional "skilled and hypnotic prose" and the research is expansive. I will be returning to this book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews