"Coming home is your major restorative in life.
"These are formidably good things, which you cannot get merely by finding true love or getting married or having children or landing the best job in the world -- or even by moving into the house of your dreams."
(Cheryl Mendelson, "Home Comforts," p.7)
"How you live defines who your are. Not just to yourself, but to others as well. Your home can indisputably affect your position in the world and the quality of your relationships. If your home is in chaos, you are likely often late for work or events. You might feel frustrated -- in a constant rush for time, forever feeling pressured by those around you. Others will soon classify you as tardy and unreliable, and your status will quickly diminish.
"No one wants that. But your home defines you in other ways as well. The design and functionality send you daily messages about your talents, your work, your relationships, and your worthiness."
(Robyn & Ritchie, "The Emotional House, p. 29)
"Everybody has a home life. No matter how many books you read on time management for the office or how to be a better manager at work, you still have to come home. Your laundry, your kids, your rubbish and your clutter are all there waiting for you.... 'Abdu'l-Baha has told us that 'The home should be orderly and well-organized.' ("Lights of Guidance," #733)
"These are formidably good things, which you cannot get merely by finding true love or getting married or having children or landing the best job in the world -- or even by moving into the house of your dreams."
(Cheryl Mendelson, "Home Comforts," p.7)
"How you live defines who your are. Not just to yourself, but to others as well. Your home can indisputably affect your position in the world and the quality of your relationships. If your home is in chaos, you are likely often late for work or events. You might feel frustrated -- in a constant rush for time, forever feeling pressured by those around you. Others will soon classify you as tardy and unreliable, and your status will quickly diminish.
"No one wants that. But your home defines you in other ways as well. The design and functionality send you daily messages about your talents, your work, your relationships, and your worthiness."
(Robyn & Ritchie, "The Emotional House, p. 29)
"Everybody has a home life. No matter how many books you read on time management for the office or how to be a better manager at work, you still have to come home. Your laundry, your kids, your rubbish and your clutter are all there waiting for you.... 'Abdu'l-Baha has told us that 'The home should be orderly and well-organized.' ("Lights of Guidance," #733)
"...The smallest of chores can take up inordinate amounts of conscious thought if they persistently remain undone. They nag at you. ... While you try to focus on another task, or even try to rest, the guilt from the 'undone' spoils the quality of that time. ... The state of tidiness of your home (or purse/wallet/car) reflects your state of mind. ... There is no room for peace of mind when the space your mind lives in is overcrowded."
(Catherine Brooker, "Balanced Living for Busy Baha'is," p.60, 62)
"You ask about the [Baha'i] admonition that everyone must work, and want to know if this means that you, a wife and mother, must work for a livelihood as your husband does. Baha'u'llah's.... directive is for the friends to be engaged in an occupation which will be of benefit to mankind. Home-making is a highly honourable and responsible work of fundamental importance for mankind. (Universal House of Justice, "Lights of Guidance," p. 626)
"...most of America's excess pounds were not gained on national holidays. After a certain age we can't make a habit of pie, certainly, but it's a soul-killing dogma that says we have to snub it even on Thanksgiving [Day]. Good people eat. So do bad people, skinny people, fat people, tall and short ones. Heaven help us, we will never master photosynthesis. Planning complex, beautiful meals and investing one's heart and time in their preparation is the opposite of self-indulgence. Kitchen-based family gatherings are process-oriented, cooperative, and in the best of worlds, nourishing and soulful. A lot of calories get used up before anyone sits down to consume. But more importantly, a lot of talk happens first, news exchanged, secrets revealed across generations, paths cleared with a touch on the arm. I have given and received some of my life's most important hugs with those big oven-mitt potholders on both hands." (Barbara Kingsolver, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," p. 288)
"The great importance attached [by the Baha'i Teachings] to the mother's role derives from the fact that she is the first educator of the child. Her attitude, her prayers, even what she eats and her physical condition have a great influence on the child when it is still in womb. When the child is born, it is she who has been endowed by God with the milk which is the first food designed for it, and it is intended that, if possible she should be with the baby to train and nurture it in its earliest days and months. ....the mother is usually closely associated with the baby during this intensely formative time when it is growing and developing faster than it ever will again during the whole of its life...." (Universal House of Justice, "Lights of Guidance," p. 626)
"If a child is left in its natural state and deprived of education, there is no doubt that it will grow up in ignorance and illiteracy, its mental faculties dulled and dimmed; in fact it will become like an animal."
('Abdu'l-Baha, "The Reality of Man," p. 43)
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