Peace Be to This House

Luke 10:5Hallway

$24.00
The keys are finally yours, and the first thing you do is walk the empty rooms with your husband. Above the coat pegs there is a print of two travellers reaching a doorstep while the household steps out to meet them, and a small lamp someone has set down on the step. It greets you every time you come in, and you hand that greeting on to whoever follows you through the door. Friends stand in the hall with their coats half off and ask about it, and you get to tell them what it means.

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170 gsm archival matte paper, ships rolled

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Peace be to this house

Somebody set a lamp on the step

From the far end of the hall you see the shape of it before the detail: two figures still coming up the road, a household already out on the stone, and one small gold lamp set down where the light can reach whoever is still walking. No face is given to anyone. The door stands open behind them.

Living with it, the welcome happens twice. Once when you come in with bags on both arms, and once when you hold the door for someone else and the picture has already said the thing you meant to say. It is silent, and better than words.

People read it differently. One guest sees two travellers arriving and a household stepping out to meet them. Another sees only the small lamp set on the step for whoever is coming up the road. A third hears a greeting spoken before anyone has crossed the threshold, and asks you about it with her coat still on. Nobody reads it as a slogan, which is rather the point: the hall looks like a home that keeps a seat spare.

Framed print of two travellers at a doorstep, hung on a hallway wall
From the artist

The lamp finds them first

Maren Hale
Maren Hale
Arrivals and still places

The light is not in the windows here. It is in the small lamp on the step, and it reaches the two travellers before anyone has said a word. They are still one stride from the door. The household is already out on the stone, leaning toward them. I keep looking at that gap, the handspan of air between the hand held out and the hand coming to meet it.

Nothing has happened yet. Everything is about to. I hope whoever lives with this looks up on an ordinary evening, coat half off, and feels the room lean toward her the way the figures lean toward the road.

Housewarming gift

The one who moves in, and the one who brings it

Close view of the framed print above a row of coat pegs

One of them is unlocking a door that is finally hers. The boxes are still in the van and the rooms echo a little, and before anything else she walks them with her husband, blesses the house and gives it to God for his use. She wants the first word said here to be peace, and the first thing on the wall to say it too.

The other is going to a housewarming and does not want to turn up with one more candle. She watched her friend wait a long time for these keys. More prayers said in a house cannot hurt, and this is the kind of gift that is still up when the flowers have gone.

It hangs in the hallway above the coat pegs, on the entry wall where everyone turns to take a coat off, 45x60 cm framed.

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Framed bible scriptures

What arrives at the door

  • Giclee print Printed right to the edge of the sheet, matte and quiet, no shine under a hallway light.
  • 170 gsm paper Matte uncoated for the unframed sheet, coated silk inside the frame.
  • Black wood frame, 12 mm Flat square profile 22 mm deep, matte finish, plexiglass front, no mat, the print running to the inner edge.
  • Three sizes 12x16, 18x24 and 24x32 in. The 45x60 cm sits well on an entry wall above a row of pegs.
Luke 10:5

What people ask about this one

1.What does peace be to this house mean in Luke 10?
Luke 10:5 sits in the moment Jesus sends seventy others ahead of him, two by two, into the towns he is about to visit. The instruction is plain: on entering a house, the first word spoken is peace. It belongs to the one arriving, said before anyone knows how the welcome will go. The scene keeps that moment, one step short of the door.
2.What Bible verse do you say when blessing a new home?
Luke 10:5 is the one many families reach for at a new door, because it puts peace first and puts it in the mouth of the person arriving. Some walk the rooms and read it aloud in each one. Others hold hands in the hallway, give the house to God for his use, and then hang the words where everyone will pass them.
3.What is a good Christian housewarming gift?
Something that is still there when the candles have burned down. This piece reads as a painting of a welcome before it reads as scripture, so it suits a friend whose taste you are not certain of, and it suits a couple who waited a long time for keys. The 45x60 cm framed size is the usual choice for giving.
4.Where should I hang a print like this in a hallway?
On the entry wall at eye level, above the coat pegs, where people turn around to take a coat off. It reads well hung beside a second piece on the same wall, the two seen as one. 30x40 cm suits a narrow strip of wall, 45x60 cm the space above a bench or pegs, and 60x80 cm a tall empty wall facing the door.
Bible verse wall hangings

On the wall before the boxes are opened

Pick the size for the wall by your front door, framed in black wood or as a single sheet, and let the hallway do the greeting.

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