Take the Plastic Off the Settee

Many of us grew up with a front room we were not allowed to sit in. It had the glass cabinet with the good plates, the ones with gold rims that came out at Christmas and for the pastor. It had a settee still wrapped in the plastic it arrived in, which squeaked and stuck to your legs in the heat. There were doilies on the side tables and a vase of artificial flowers that were dusted every Saturday. Children were shooed out. Real life happened in the kitchen, on the verandah and on the old chairs by the television.

It is easy to laugh about now, and plenty of Caribbean families on both sides of the Atlantic do. But the front room was not silly. It came from somewhere. For a generation that had come from very little, a room kept perfect was proof of arrival. The good plates said, we are respectable people. The plastic said, this cost more than you know, and it will last.

Saving the best for later

The trouble is that “later” has a way of never arriving. Consider a woman who kept her mother’s china for thirty years without using it, waiting for an occasion grand enough. When she finally moved into a smaller place, half of it had been broken in the move and the rest had never held a meal. Or a couple whose best room, with the nicest breeze and the view of the hills, was reserved for visitors who came twice a year, while the family squeezed into the back bedroom the rest of the time.

The same habit shows up in newer forms. The house abroad that will be enjoyed “when we retire”. The verandah furniture bought for a garden party that keeps being postponed. The spare room kept pristine for a son who lives in Atlanta and visits every third summer. Perhaps most commonly: “When the house is finished, then we’ll have people round.” Meanwhile, years of ordinary Sundays pass in a house that is already good enough to share a meal in.

It is the domestic version of a thought most of us know: I will be happy when. When the debt is paid. When the children settle. When the roof is done. When the plastic can come off.

This is the day

Psalm 118 has one of the most quoted lines in the Bible: “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). We sing it on Sunday mornings. It is worth remembering where it sits. The psalm is a song of someone who has come through danger — “I was pushed hard, so that I was falling” (Psalm 118:13, ESV) — and who is now arriving at the gates of the temple with a crowd. It is not a song for a perfect day. It is a song for a day that follows hardship, when things are not fully resolved but God has been faithful enough to celebrate.

That is exactly the kind of day most households live in. The roof is patched, not replaced. The mortgage is manageable, not gone. The children are fine, mostly. If we wait for a finished, perfect day before we use the good plates, the psalm suggests we will miss the day the Lord has actually made.

Using the house now

None of this is an argument against taking care of nice things. Covering a new settee from dust and damp in a humid climate is sensible. Keeping a room tidy for guests is a kindness. The question is whether the care serves the life of the house or has quietly replaced it.

A few small shifts can make a difference:

• Use the good plates on an ordinary Tuesday. If one chips, it will have chipped doing what it was made for.
• Let the family into the best room. If the front room gets the evening breeze, maybe that is where homework and dominoes should happen.
• Invite people before the house is finished. A meal on a verandah with bare blocks is still a meal. Friends rarely notice the unpainted walls; they notice the welcome.
• Buy things to be used. When choosing furniture, fabrics or finishes, pick what will stand up to children, damp and daily life, so you are not tempted to wrap it up.
• Ask what you are waiting for. If you keep something for “a special occasion”, try naming the occasion. If you can’t, it may already be here.

What the plastic was protecting

If you ask older relatives about the front room, some will tell you they never thought much about it; it was simply what you did. Others will admit it was a kind of armour. After years of being looked down on, a perfect room was a way to be taken seriously.

There is a gentler kind of dignity available. It does not need a room kept like a showroom. It comes from knowing that we are already accepted, that our worth before God is not measured by the gold rim on a plate, and that a house is honoured most when it is lived in, shared and enjoyed. Jesus was happy to eat in plain houses with ordinary people, and he did not ask to be shown to the best room first.

So take the plastic off the settee, if there is still plastic on it. Sit on it. Let the grandchildren bounce. Put the good plates on the table this Sunday and serve the rice and peas on them. This is the day. It will not come round again.

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