Preserve the home

I was once told by a doctor, (with respect to the problems of mental illness or brain damage in a child of the home), that we must "preserve the home for positive therapeutic value".

It occurs to me that this has much wider applications. When social structures break down, values and spaces need to be preserved for exactly the same reason. If the social structure is destroyed, both the advantaged and the disadvantaged have no recourse to the values they once shared.

Where is my justification for this? (Besides the fact that it has served me these past 30+ years.) 

We speak with dismay sometimes about 'fortress church', as if the churches should be open and welcoming to all and sundry. Of course they should be. But if the sundry are destroying the space, then it is incumbent on the people to protect it so that it is still available to all (and sundry) for positive therapeutic value.

It must be a fortress, a safe stronghold. It must have walls, like the walls of the old houses in Paris that encompassed the most beautiful of inner gardens. (Jean Valjean, Les Miserables).

The city has walls and gates. The gates are open, but not to everything.

And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

So build the best and most beautiful walls. Enclose the safe space so that you can use it effectively and preserve it for positive therapeutic value.