Home as a Fortress

Sometimes living in a brick house with iron doors and bars on the windows, this house feels like  a physical fortress, but that is not quite what I mean. A neighbor who tended my garden during a summer trip said it felt like a quiet little refuge from the world. That's what our temporary "homes" here should be- a place to get away from the cacophony and noise of modern life if we choose to do so. A place to work hard, sleep deeply, and love well. To open a gate from the bustle of the city into another world of coolness and green and silence, except for the mosquitoes and birds and cats. 

Advertisers like to call the traditional wife the "gatekeeper" of the home, and try to find ways to get bad stuff past her, by disguising it or convincing her it really isn't that bad, and besides it saves time and effort. Time and effort are exactly what we need to spend at home. It takes time to man the gates, and effort to see through the disguises of the polluters and thieves, whether they come through the door, the television, or the computer. And "gatekeeping", when guarding that gate is your most important job, is an honor. In a positive sense it means opening that gate when a ragged fugitive flees the battering of a terribly evil world, and comforting him or her with soup  and silence while slamming that gate in the very face of the abuser. It means creating a sunny pool of warm joy in a gray and wintry landscape. It is hard, but it is worth every effort you can make.