Welcome to our Symposium on Home!
Starting today and continuing through the next two weeks, our writers will be sharing their thoughts on the theme:
“There’s no place like home.” There is especially no place like a well-ordered, welcoming, loving home. Domestic tranquility is one of the most beautiful things in the world. But as Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “It is hard to make a home.” Homes of the hospitable sort do not just pop out of the ground. They have to be nurtured and maintained with patience and sacrifices that often aren’t noticed or appreciated. This work must be done while contending with any number of foes that do damage to home life: busyness (is it a home if no one is ever there?), the transitoriness of modern life, unemployment, workaholism, poverty, illness, divorce, and abuse, along with the garden-variety sinful cussedness that makes us all so difficult to live with. This symposium will investigate what makes homes beautiful, and how to create them in a world filled with broken people who all need a place to call home.
It has been our pleasure to work with this talented group of writers to compile and present the following article symposium. Please check back daily for new articles!
And if any of these articles inspires you, please submit a response by clicking here! It’ll get sent to our symposium editors and, if approved, added to the symposium. People who read this article will see your response immediately following, and we’ll promote your contribution individually to the John Jay Institute’s network.
Sincerely, The Home Symposium Editors
JJI Managing Editor
Zachary Gappa has a degree in Political Theory from Patrick Henry College and currently works as both Managing Editor for the John Jay Institute’s Center for a Just Society and Operations Manager at Gappa Security Solutions. Most recently he has been enjoying trying to stay warm in Wisconsin while planning family activities for Summer.
JJI Editor
Anna Smith holds an MA in biblical studies from Westminster Seminary California and a BA in political science from Geneva College. She works at Westminster and lives in Southern California with her husband, where she loves the ocean but misses her native Midwest. She (mostly re-)tweets @AnnaSpeckhard.
JJI Editor
Lauren Bobbitt, a 2009 John Jay Institute fellow, has a background in literature and earned her MA at Marquette University. She currently works in communications for an organic dairy farm, where she enjoys the smell of manure and striving to reflect the good life in her living and writing.
Special Guest Editor
Liz Horst holds a degree in English literature from Grove City College. She works as a Suzuki violin teacher in the Washington, D.C. area and, in her spare time, enjoys immersing herself in great books and poetry.