Fixed on the eternal

The Block is back, and this time it is playing on the gender divide. Can women reno a house that will stay standing? Can guys perfectly puff a throw pillow? I hope that this latest TV offering doesn’t rely on the same sexist clichés as other reality shows. (I dare not name the recent reality-dating-show-implosion for fear of prolonging its airtime).

When it comes to all things homey, there is one debate in our house strongly divided along gender lines: How many cushions are too many? My poor, misled husband thinks that one pillow per person is perfectly adequate—you just need something to lay your head on. But I happen to know that you need one for ‘fluffing’, one for your head, and one for delighting your eyeballs (there is no such thing as just decorative).

I admit I am a sucker for homeware. We’ve recently moved into a new house, and I could easily spend the rest of my life trying to make it look Block worthy. But I’ve noticed something disturbing: my house will never live up to Block-type standards of perfection. For a start, people actually live there. And people tend to make dishes, and stains and a mess. We have things like cables, and washing on lines.

Like almost everything touched by marketers, the perfect home is a beautiful delusion, manufactured to make us spend. Think about beauty, fashion and electronics—all designed to keep us striving for the next big thing, or the latest ideal.

Now, thanks to bargain-basement pricing, you can deck out your entire house with the latest on-trend décor, and update it every season. We’ve started clothing our homes, the way we clothe ourselves.

Not so long ago, if you bought a clock, you probably kept it until the clock stopped working. Now, large marketplaces like The Warehouse and K-Mart are adding homeware to their seasonal fashions. For $20, you can buy a new clock to go with every new trend. ‘Geometric’ was huge last season, but this season is all about ‘Scandi’. And that will be out of date next season.

Our world has been broken by an excess of spending in wealthy cultures. ‘What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?’ Jesus asks (Mark 8:36). In putting our identity and value into the illusion of perfection, we have lost what feeds our soul.

I will no doubt get addicted to the latest season of The Block. But I’ve decided perfection is overrated in my own home. On-trend cushions might feed consumerism, but a home that offers an old-fashioned welcome, feeds the soul.

The peeling, lime green wallpaper in our house is temporary. But the kind of lives we build as we eat, sleep, talk, pray and even watch TV—I hope—will be eternal.

‘So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4:18).

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by Ingrid Barratt (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 11 June 2016, pp3
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.