Home as Art, Home as Heaven

I looked around the blue-tiled room and sighed. There were no windows, there was no AC unit, and the summer heat was oppressive. An iron bed frame stood opposite a small wardrobe in one corner of the room. The rest of the room was bare. How was I going to make this space homey?

I dug around in my suitcase and pulled out two cotton dish towels printed with pictures of notable sights in London and Yorkshire — reminders of my birth country, the UK. “Well, I guess I won’t be drying the dishes with these after all,” I chuckled to myself as I taped the towels to the walls. I liked the colorful effect. 

I had a few scenic postcards from the UK too. I stuck them up next to the towels. Suddenly, the stark room took on a much cozier atmosphere.

My art collection grew. I bought more postcards with scenes of Laos, where I now lived — photographs of bright green rice paddies and golden stupas. I found local artists who painted on handmade paper, and chose small depictions of orange-robed monks and vibrant sunsets on the Mekong. 

Handwritten Bible verses dotted my wardrobe and mirror. Photographs of family and friends smiled out at me from beside the postcards. And as a teenager in Asia, it wasn’t long before I discovered K-pop and started hanging pictures of my favorite boy bands on the wall too!

Art and My Identity

These pictures, paintings, and postcards reflected pieces of my identity. They made my room homey because they echoed my personal taste and my sense of where and what “home” was. 

Home was a mixture of places and people, and home was connected to my identity, as it was a feeling of belonging and being myself. 

Throughout my travels, I kept my tradition of collecting art and putting pictures on my wall as soon as I moved in somewhere. Some of my postcards eventually got so tattered I couldn’t use them anymore! 

My tastes also changed as I grew older, so I put boy-band posters and certain artwork away. Yet even now, I have a selection of art on my wall that reflects all the facets of myself — beautiful prints from the UK, the US, Laos, and Korea.

The pictures help me remember different adventures and life lessons, but most of all, they remind me that I don’t have to fit into one identity category. I am a work of art myself, made up of multiple cultures and experiences. Just as I enjoy how different colors and styles of art combine into a harmonious collage on my wall, I can appreciate all the various “shades” and “textures” that combine into my unique self.

Home as a Taste of Heaven

Beyond reflecting a multifaceted identity, “Home interprets heaven,” to quote Charles Henry Parkhurst. Ideally, our physical spaces help us imagine what heaven will be like.

I believe this is mostly about cultivating an atmosphere of love, peace, and joy — which, of course, doesn’t rely on decorations or furniture. However, I think art and beauty in our homes can also help us “interpret” heaven.

Author Sally Clarkson moved numerous times as a missionary. She writes of how she craved a place to belong amid her family’s nomadic lifestyle, and how home became a kind of refuge. To her, home should be a “haven of inspiration” with color and beauty, and “the place where whispers of God’s love are heard regularly.”[1]

I appreciate how she describes her vision of home as being an extension of the Incarnation, both in terms of our physical places and personal relationships. She writes, “We must understand the creation of home as a work of incarnational power and creativity. ‘Kingdom come’ doesn’t happen on some cosmic scale; the whole point is that it invades the physical at the humblest level.”[2]

I try to reflect “kingdom come” in my living spaces, no matter how humble they may be. Making myself at home means directing my thoughts to the place of my ultimate belonging.

And so, when I look at the multicultural art on my walls, I am particularly reminded of the picture of God’s kingdom in Revelation 7:9–10:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”
Revelation 7:9–10 NIV, emphasis added

Heaven will be a multicultural environment! No matter our earthly background, we will find perfect belonging and community there together.

Wherever you call “home” right now, may your surroundings help to remind you of your heavenly home and the beauty of your unique identity.