Don’t know about you, but we’re a little scared!

With the last day of school just around the corner, we’re not ready. Of course we’re happy for our kids, but we’re also overwhelmed at the many logistics that still need to get ironed out—whether it’s for a summer class, camp, lesson, or family vacation.

Which brings us to workspaces. 

That’s right—command central. In this third week, as we look at Household Economy, or Level 3 of your Trinity House, we need to look at the special physical space that—together with God’s grace—ensures not just your family’s survival this summer, but flourishing.

For too many years, we made the mistake of thinking “I can pay bills, fill out forms, and work on my laptop anywhere.” But then came Covid, and a kind of reckoning with our disembodied, fluctuating systems. No, we could no longer do what needed to be done at the dining room table, a couch, or the back porch.

And for good reason. We are embodied. We live through senses and in dimensions. And the work of our minds—planning, organizing, scheduling, budgeting—needs to be done in harmony with an embodied environment that supports a well-functioning union of mind and body.

If we want our minds to take in information and process it efficiently and in an organized way, to the extent possible, it needs to be presented that way. That’s why we tend to work better when we have a space of our own where we can keep organized all the stuff we need to commandeer our big to-do lists.

Once we figured out how comforting and focusing it is to have all your work stuff in one place, a lot of anxiety left our lives and we developed peaceful, organized work routines. Not that you don’t need to take advantage of the nomadic work life sometimes, but once you have your set workspace, you’ll find it’s very freeing to at least take off from a home base.

This experience is, of course, an illustration of a larger problem with our post-modern world. Its mobility and flexibility can go too far in dismantling the connections that we need between mind and body to feel rooted enough to function well. So, whenever we feel the anxiety that flows just beneath the surface of post-modern life, we should look for ways to reconnect mind and body, to draw groundedness and order from creation, through our senses, and into our minds. 

Once we get into the habit of respecting the connection between creation, our bodies, and our minds—the way God made us—we find we have more bandwidth to focus on building out the other important hubs of Household Economy. Beyond your workspace, there’s the kitchen, laundry, schooling area, workbench, and maybe your garage or garden. These are all mini-command centers that can bless your family as you roll up the sleeves together in a peaceful, orderly way.
 
That’s the simple thought to share with you on the cusp of summer. Learn from our mistakes! If you haven’t already invested time in setting up or organizing your workspace, put it near the top of your summer priorities list, and Lord willing, your Household Economy will flourish more in the months ahead.