Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home Kindle Edition

A refreshing change of pace from modern writings on "how" to do home, Michel's important work narrows in (in a necessary way) on the "what" and "why." Apart from a theological framework on the origins and significance of home and place, ascribing it value is a near impossibility. The subtitle is not betrayed: Keeping Place is a winning collection of reflections (not instructions) on home and they are beautiful indeed. Not only does the book reveal the riches of home on earth but consistently points to the longing for our final homecoming (or home going) and the first Homemaker. I was personally encouraged in my not-so-menial tasks and reminded of the power for our communities of homes well done. I've been feeling a re-read is in order, not because it is too much, but because there is much.

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.

Great book

Great lessons!

Here you have the perfect blend of ethos and pathos. Skillfully weaving Biblical exegesis with quotes from various great authors, the writer weaves the Biblical narrative with her personal narrative and what we have a beautiful tapestry. Here is a book one can savor and when you have taste it, it will leave you longing for Home even as you face life at home with renewed hope.

The writing is disjointed unfortunately. Her storytelling is awkward (though at times touching) amidst a mix of quotes from many, many sources and historical narrative - the combination makes it a really slow read. I wish the editor did a stronger job. I love her heart for the displaced and for gospel truth, but I had to work to read this book. I wonder if it would be better in audio. Second half is better than the first.

If I left right now, I could make it to any of the six places that I’ve called home in less than half an hour. Two of those places — my childhood home, and the bungalow where we started out as newlywed kids and left as middle-aged parents — are in my bones. I know those places. They’ve shaped me in ways I barely understand.In her new book Keeping Place, Jen Pollock Michel helps me understand why. We’re all homesick. “Home represents humanity’s most visceral ache — and our oldest desire.” Since Eden, we’ve never really been home. But our places still shape us. We serve a homemaking God, and the church is called to follow his example.A BOOK FOR MEN AND WOMENSome men might bristle at the thought of reading a book on home. Jen recently had coffee with a young woman who said she looked forward to her book on “homemaking.” “I wondered later if she imagined a book of recipes, table setting ideas, and the best way to organize a linen closet,” Jen notes.This isn’t a book about housekeeping, at least in that sense. It’s a book about our longings for home, as well as the role that God has given us in this world. It helps us understand the story of Scripture through the lens of place and home.I wouldn’t have thought I would be interested in reading a book on home, but I’m glad I did. It helped me understand my own longings for home. It deepened my understanding of the theology of home, and helped me understand God’s care for our places, as well as the church’s role to be housekeepers in the world.THEOLOGICALLY RICHJen has a keen theological eye. One of the reasons I appreciated this book is because it’s so theologically rich. My copy is dogeared and marked, and I plan to go through again and index some of the insights I gleaned. In almost every chapter I found myself thinking that I’d never quite seen things that way before.It’s only been in the past few years that I’ve begun to think about the importance of place, guided by  The Imperfect Pastor  and  The New Parish . Jen’s gone even deeper. She shows us how this theme is key to Scripture. She teases out the implications for how we live as individuals, families, and the church. We need a theology of home, and Jen’s done us a great favor in guiding us.BEAUTIFULIt’s rare to find a book that’s theologically rich and beautifully written. Keeping Place is both. Jen shares from her experience, interweaves her insights with church history and Scripture, and does so with style. One of the reasons my copy is dogeared is because she manages to express truth so beautifully.I’ve said similar things, but never as beautifully as this: “When heaven meets earth, earthly marriage will cease the moment Christ raises his glass and drinks to his bride, the church.” Seriously. I could read that sentence for days and still marvel at both the beauty of the sentence and the truth it expresses. I’m grateful that Jen has worked so hard to not just express truth, but to express it beautifully.I haven’t yet watched the DVD video series that goes with the book, but it looks like a great teaching companion. I’m looking forward to using it.Jen’s pastor calls her “one of the fine voices emerging in our generation.” I agree. I’m grateful for Jen Pollock Michel, and I’m going to read pretty much anything she writes. Keeping Place is a book that deserves to be read and treasured. Just don’t ask to borrow my copy unless you promise to give it back.

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.