Customer Reviews

Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life

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I have had the privilege of being Margaret Kim Peterson's academic colleague as well as a frequent imbiber of her culinery skills, so I can say with some authority that this book is NOT a prissy primer of Christian huswifery. In fact, inspite of the aesthetic perfection of Margaret's gourmet "presentation," her house expresses the creative chaos of one who lives in five small rooms with a very lively five year old, a husband in a wheel chair and two "wind-up" dogs. In short, she very well knows the difference between seeing the sacred in the mundane and supposing that the state of her home reflects the state of her soul. I love that in Margaret and in this book.

"House Keeping" is for anyone who truly believes that the things of everyday are good, true, and beautiful -- that they can be done with the kind of care that befits preparing a table for communion. But we don't all have to reverence the same tasks. As for me, while I hope to become a good cook in retirement, I love decorating my home as an offering to family and friends. This book is an invitation to stop and savor the moment. One reviewer disdained Margaret's disdain for dishwashers. While I confess that I have one, I love eating dinner at the Petersons' home not only because the food is succulent but because I get to put my hands in warm sudsy water and wash the dishes in the kitchen while catching up with Margaret through stories of students and parents and, well, life. Can washing dishes be a sacrament? Why ever not!

Margaret Kim Peterson is a fluid and witty writer. She infuses theological thinking into the everyday and makes the reader want to live in both worlds. That is a fine thing.

People will be turned off by the title of this book because they are turned off by keeping house. How unfortunate! I'm an academic whose days are spent reading books and staring at a computer screen----except for keeping house, which I use broadly to include gardening, painting siding, and just puttering. "Ora et labora" was the motto for the Benedictines--a term as fresh today as it was centuries ago.

Margaret Peterson pulls wonderful anectdotes and readings and poems from a wide range of histories, biographies, and magazines. It's a fascinating book. It would serve as a wonderful text for courses on culture or gender----or a course invented just for the book. I'd find a way to use it for a seminary course if I hadn't been booted from my teaching position ("My Calvin Seminary Story"). The vast majority of my students were men, and they need this book most. The central thesis of the book is: "A Christian home, properly understood, is never just for one's own family. A Christian home overflows its boundaries; it is an outpost of the kingdom of God, where the hungry are fed and the naked are clothed and there is room enough for everyone."

Margaret Kim Peterson's newest offering, Keeping House: A Litany of Everyday Life, is a surprising breath of fresh air. With Biblical truth and poignant examples from her own life and the lives of those around her, she boldly reframes the usual perspective on the work of the household. Feeding, clothing, and sheltering our families are important tasks. Yes, the tasks are repetitive and often generate little feedback, even when done well. Nevertheless, Peterson reminds us that keeping house is really the creation of an environment that fosters peace and relationship, within the family and spilling into the world beyond the threshold.

Peace and relationship and service are the goals, not a perfect home or a gourmet dinner. As a full-time professional and a mother of 3 with a chronically-ill husband, I especially appreciated Peterson's realism; in reading her book, I did not feel burdened by an unattainable standard. Instead, I felt freed--to say "no" to things that sacrifice the important, even if mundane. Certainly, there are seasons of life when meals are less healthy and the house is cluttered. Peterson does not criticize but speaks to the underlying attitude that makes a season into a habit. We crave "real simple" solutions to the busyness of our lives, as offered by the popular magazine; Margaret Kim Peterson highlights for us the whys of keeping house so that we can make choices for our homes--sometimes against the grain of the world--without guilt.

This was different than what I expected as it gives little practical information. That didn't stop it from being a good book, just more on the philosophical side.

However, it would be perfect for a book club discussion. While reading, I found myself nodding in agreement with the writer and wishing there was someone across a table to give a nudge and a "listen to this, what do you think about...".

As a SAHM and a Christian, this book was a pleasure to read and encouraged me to continue the challenging but valuable work I do to keep our home running smoothly. But it was not written just for the full-time homemaker. The author addresses the basic physical care we all need as human beings, how the work of homekeeping has been devalued over the last century, how the absence of that care affects so many modern households, and what Christianity has to say about its importance.

This was more of a why-to book than a how-to book.

Margaret Kim Peterson embraces keeping house as important, and even sacred work, without sentimentalizing, idolizing, or denigrating it. Those who do the work of keeping house will find their lives enriched and their morale boosted by her sensitive theological perspective on the ways we "live out our dependence on God and our interdependence on one another."

This isn't the kind of book that will help you get ahead in the Most Impressive Home competition. Rather, it helps us appreciate the inherent, spiritual value of hospitality in all its practical forms. A bed made with fresh, clean sheets, a simple meal of vegetables in season, a drawer opening to reveal a stack of neatly folded laundry; these things feed the bodies and souls of those we love. And because this is so, the creativity and work that go into them are a sort of sacrament to the Lord, wherein we love Him by loving those He has placed around us.

If our homes are to be places of refreshment, nurturance, and beauty, then they must also be places where someone has purposefully set aside the time and energy required to provide for the bodily needs and comforts of others. And this, Peterson reminds us, is decidedly different from pursuing perfectionism. Perfect houses are about us; hospitality is about everyone. In reminding us of the true (and eternal) purposes of our work, Peterson gives us permission to eschew perfectionism and delight in the simplicity of good-enough. She addresses questions like whether cleanliness really is next to godliness, and helps us re-evaluate our tendency to collect more and better stuff, and a bigger house to put it in. She offers a practical invitation into the counter-cultural mindset of accepting the limits of our homes and resources and choosing to live creatively and generously within them.

Peterson's theological perspective on keeping house has given words to my own unarticulated feelings. As I read, I felt a growing appreciation for the value of my own work, a lessening of the sense of drudgery associated with it, less eagerness to move beyond it to the "real work" to be done outside my home. Peterson's book is practical, readable, encouraging, and loving. She never stoops to a legalistic standard for separating the good housekeepers from the bad; rather, she insightfully distinguishes the good work of nurturing the bodies and souls of our families and neighbors from the fluff of impressive entertainment that some call hospitality. I recommend this book to those newly establishing their homes,and to those who are tired and overwhelmed, who long for a more simple way of deciding which things are important and which are not. You will put this little book down with a lighter heart, some good tips, and a deeper appreciation for the little things in life (which turn out to be some of the most important.)

For the second edition, I offer one small suggestion for those without a dish drain: a clean tea towel on the counter will catch the pots and knives washed by hand during the course of cooking a meal, and takes up less space.

I read a lot of books, and few of them prompt immediate or tangible change in my life or environment. But Margaret Kim Peterson inspired me to make one specific adjustment to my home (and contemplate more). This morning, from a closet, I brought out a right-fine aunt-made quilt and placed it on my bed, replacing its overused, tattered, similarly vintaged cousin.

KEEPING HOUSE asks and answers stimulating questions about why we do what we do. An example: "Putting away things that get daily or weekly use is a way to exercise a kind of providential foresight...Having clothes ready to wear in the drawer or in the closet is part of creating an expectation that in this home we care for one another. Our needs are not a perpetual emergency but are anticipated and provided for ahead of time."

A theology professor at Eastern University, Peterson has written a book for intelligent readers. On the other hand, as a church "theologian in residence," she has written in a pastoral voice that is accessible to any reader. She has done a masterful job of encouraging anyone who has home-keeping responsibilities. She neither romanticizes domesticity (like Martha Stewart --- aren't we having fun?) nor denigrates it.

And her book isn't a guilt trip. The burdened perfectionist? Peterson calmly convinces that "a well-kept house is a means to an end, not an end in itself." Her target is "`good enough' housekeeping." The shopper who can't manage purchased possessions? She digs deeper than what she calls the "secular gospel of decluttering"; ultimately there's a gentleness in her nudge to control one's habits and square-footage. Peterson, who shares a modest, two-bedroom house with a husband confined to a wheelchair and a son, writes: "Instead of nurturing dissatisfaction with the shortcomings of our present home...perhaps we can turn our energies toward receiving as gifts the homes we have and to creating in them enough order and tidiness to promote convenience and peace and hospitality." There's such grace in her words: "perhaps we can," rather than "we should"; "enough order...to promote convenience."

Sandwiched between an introductory chapter ("What's Christian about Housework?") and a closing summary, Peterson writes two chapters each on three aspects of keeping a household: sheltering, clothing and feeding. One chapter discusses the issue in terms of a noun --- for example, "Clothes to Wear"; the subsequent chapter discusses the act of "Clothing a Household." (It does seem that she rather glosses over the not-insignificant act of "cleaning a house.")

In several chapters Peterson points out fallacies in some fantasies our culture promotes. I especially like the kitchen analysis: people buying better and bigger cookware and doo-dads while all the while cooking less frequently and complexly. "The fantasy of cooking is more visibly popular than cooking itself."

Especially in terms of clothing and feeding, Peterson relies on liturgical themes, as suggested in the subtitle, "A Litany of Everyday Life." The rhythm of the church calendar --- the pattern of daily prayers and stretches of ordinary days punctuated by feast days both weekly (Sunday) and annually --- mirrors our home making. "We fix lunch because it is lunchtime...We pack away coats and boots...because winter is over and summer is coming. As we engage with the litany of everyday life, we engage with life itself, with our fellow human beings, with the world in which God has set us all, and thus with God himself."

I don't think Margaret Kim Peterson quotes the following verse, but her writing warmly reminds me of an old favorite, in an old translation: "And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). Even, or especially, keeping house.

--- Reviewed by Evelyn Bence

Having read this wonderful book makes my housekeeping times more meaningful, peaceful, and illumined. Brother Lawrence taught that we could love God while doing our daily tasks. Margaret Kim Peterson teaches that we love our neighbor by doing our daily tasks. We love our closest neighbors, the members of our own household, by doing the very tasks that God does from beginning to end for his people: providing food, clothing, and shelter. Peterson answers the question, "Is housekeeping sacred or profane?" with a countercultural proposal that housekeeping is sacred and mundane, but not profane. The repetitiousness of housekeeping tasks reminds Peterson of a liturgy, prayers prayed over and over. In pairs of chapters that address first theological and then practical aspects of shelter, clothing, and food, she explains the significance and worth of keeping house. Since reading this thoughtful book I have enjoyed my own homemaking more, viewing this labor no longer as a waste of time, but as a reflection of God's own character and work as the Home Maker. This volume would be a great gift for anyone who cares about following Christ and about making a home for any household.

I enjoyed reading a few pages of this book every night before bed. It helped me to review my day, and to examine what I wanted to do differently tomorrow in how I care for my family and my home.

It's not a how-to book on how to keep house or clean the house, and it certainly is not a Martha Stewart type "perfectionist" book.

It is a thoughtful book. You can feel how very relaxed the writer is about how she keeps house. She's not in a house-beautiful competition, she's not comparing herself to others, she's not coveting more stuff. She talks about the FEELINGS OF HOME. Of feeling AT home. Of showing love and caring for others. Of being a safe house. A thankful home. All of this equals a well-kept home.

If you are feeling uptight about how to care for your home and family, just read a few pages and you'll calm down and want to dig in and bless your family with a well-kept home.

For those who will never read Brother Lawrence, there's always Margaret Kim Peterson.

In simple, gentle, persuasive prose, Peterson argues for the worth of keeping house in its broadest sense. From making soup, to changing sheets, sweeping a floor to folding a shirt, she sees the Divine in what she calls the "litany of everyday life"... a litany that serves to meet the longing for home that resides deeply in each human heart.

The crowning achievement of Keeping House is its successful discussion of God as Domestic-- the One who shelters, orders, feeds and nourishes all creatures. Examples from Psalms, parables, Genesis, the life of Jesus and more illustrate the point.

Sure to challenge the assumptions we've been handed down-- that housework is meaningless, valueless drudge work, only fit to be passed off to the least of these among us. Also poised to inspire both singles and families on the topic of what it means to make a home for oneself and for others.