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We just returned from a trip to Charleston, SC, and it was interesting to see such history in this city and be taken back in time to the pre-Civil War days.  Many of the huge mansions of that era still stand and are a reminder that the home was viewed as "heaven on earth" and a haven in an uncertain world.  The Victorian era seemed so calm, gentle, and gracious - so completely opposite from our own.  Yet the decades spanning the Civil War to the turn of the century were among the most politically, socially, and economically turbulent years in our history. 

However, there was a legacy of love left to us from that era, where the home was created as a retreat of beauty, comfort and contentment that would protect, nuture, and sustain those families within.  Traditions, such as Sunday  white linen dinners and Independence Day picnics, celebrated the joys of home and family life, and were the mortar that held families together in a tumultrous society that was changing fast.

A home is definitely where we start from, and should be a place carved out as a haven for families. No matter what our circumstances or where we live, no matter how large or how small, a home can and should be a happy, secure, and beautiful retreat of love and laughter.  Life holds no more guarantees for us now than it did in the Victorian era, but they faced the future with full hearts and we can too. 

A quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:  "Every spirit builds itself a house, and beyond its house a world, and beyond its world a heaven.  Know then that world exists for you."