{"id":1595,"date":"2015-10-15T14:06:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T18:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/hearts-that-welcome\/"},"modified":"2015-10-15T14:06:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T18:06:05","slug":"hearts-that-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/hearts-that-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearts that Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Sr. Nun Other<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We did some fall housecleaning last night, starting with kitchen cupboards. Threw out some &#8220;lids to nowhere,&#8221; a melted turkey baster, and an old plastic measuring cup. It feels good to have dust-free, clutter-free cupboards, and a mental inventory of what&#8217;s available. I sometimes wonder what Mary&#8217;s house looked like. As Jesus&#8217; mother, her life was always eventful, with an expectation for the unexpected. I imagine her home to be clean, orderly, and ready to welcome. But then I have a reputation for obsessive neatness. I prefer to think of it as stress avoidance. Friends with busy lives sometimes ask for advice, and it&#8217;s very basic: remove clutter, which I define as anything not necessary or beautiful. Beautiful is up to you\u2014could be children&#8217;s art\u2014or any number of things. To truly save time, avoid short-cuts\u2014an oxymoron but true.<\/p>\n<p>Psalm 84 tells of God&#8217;s lovely dwelling place, a place of peace and beauty that draws our weary hearts.\u00a0<em>Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you. &#8220;Selah.&#8221; Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/22010656030_baa8bb3e2b_z.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5625128\" src=\"http:\/\/www.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/22010656030_baa8bb3e2b_z.jpg\" alt=\"Kitchen\" width=\"640\" height=\"532\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow us<\/strong><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/communityofjesus.org\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/communityofjesus.org<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/zrB3lfTj7SU\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sr. Nun Other We did some fall housecleaning last night, starting with kitchen cupboards. Threw out some &#8220;lids to nowhere,&#8221; a melted turkey baster, and an old plastic measuring cup. It feels good to have dust-free, clutter-free cupboards, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/hearts-that-welcome\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}