It's a Small World--After All
Ed and Jodi, my pastors, threw an early Fourth of July picnic on Sunday. Various people in the church have been hosting these picnics about once a month through the summer: the design is loosely outreach-oriented, in the sense that you're encouraged to bring your friends, but mostly it's just hanging out, eating summery potluck food. There's no program, no planned invitation to the church, no altar call, or anything. I love it. I love it because they trust that the spirit of the event is inviting on its own, and because they are willing to rely on the relationships themselves gently to blossom into an invitation to worship together at the right time.
I walked to their house with one of my mom's-recipe blueberry pies in hand, and the small-town Americana almost knocked me over on the way. Other than that, the few blocks were uneventful. While I was there, I asked Jodi what they were up to this week, and they ended up coming over to my house last night for dinner, which Ed mercifully stepped in to save because even though my cooking is generally edible--and even though I'm always blithely optimistic that things will be different this time--I am absolutely, without exception, horrible at grilling. And in my blithe optimism, I had planned an entirely grillable meal. When they arrived, I was preparing the second batch of vegetables after the first ones had been charred beyond recognition.
So anyway, what totally charmed me was how easy it was for us to get together, and then to spend an evening sitting around eating and talking. It seems so utterly ordinary, and yet in reality it is so incredibly rare, that you can say to someone, hey, what are you doing this week, and they come over two days later for dinner. Much less a pastor (or two!), sad to say . . . which I mean not at all as a criticism of people in ministry, but as a commentary on how busy we all are, to the extent that even our pastors are stretched to the breaking point, and how we've settled into a world where everything is done on a huge and hectic scale.
I've noticed how much easier things are on a small scale everywhere I've gone this year, not only at my dear little new church. On one of the first days of school, I went to the bookstore to buy an envelope and realized I had left my wallet in my office. I went to put it back, but the woman behind the counter waved me up, "Oh, don't worry about it--you can just pay us later." She didn't know me, since I had just started, but she wrote my name down on a little post-it and stuck it to the cash register. Contrast that with UNC's Student Stores, which have a security guard at the entrance, those alarms by the doors, and roving "eye in the sky" cameras built into the ceiling. They have to have them as the school is so large--but how nice it is to operate in a world where it isn't even necessary.
It's so psychically comforting. I felt like I spent so much time at UNC waiting in endless lines for bored clerks who'd been snowed or hassled or jerked around by too many snotty students who thought that they needed to be pushy to survive (which was basically true). And UNC was largely a pleasant place; it's the South after all. But all that pushing and struggling just to pay your tuition bill or figure out why the library is still fining you for a book you never checked out--it really wears on a person.
It's easy to forget how wearing it is; you practically get used to it and think you have to live that way. My students easily offer critiques of prior ways of living--they imagine that people in the past were impoverished, repressed, dying to break free (etc., etc.)--but it's much harder for them, as it is for me, to offer real critiques of the way we live now. Not just complaints, but insightful assessments of what our modes of living cost us. I can't imagine my life without the mobility I've had that has allowed me to travel and study, and email and cell phones and cars for the masses (like me) make it all possible. But they also mean that our communities are stretched out far, and it can be exhausting just managing it all--even as exciting as it is.
And so in contrast, you're all invited to Washington, PA. I'm sure somebody will be having another picnic some time soon.
I walked to their house with one of my mom's-recipe blueberry pies in hand, and the small-town Americana almost knocked me over on the way. Other than that, the few blocks were uneventful. While I was there, I asked Jodi what they were up to this week, and they ended up coming over to my house last night for dinner, which Ed mercifully stepped in to save because even though my cooking is generally edible--and even though I'm always blithely optimistic that things will be different this time--I am absolutely, without exception, horrible at grilling. And in my blithe optimism, I had planned an entirely grillable meal. When they arrived, I was preparing the second batch of vegetables after the first ones had been charred beyond recognition.
So anyway, what totally charmed me was how easy it was for us to get together, and then to spend an evening sitting around eating and talking. It seems so utterly ordinary, and yet in reality it is so incredibly rare, that you can say to someone, hey, what are you doing this week, and they come over two days later for dinner. Much less a pastor (or two!), sad to say . . . which I mean not at all as a criticism of people in ministry, but as a commentary on how busy we all are, to the extent that even our pastors are stretched to the breaking point, and how we've settled into a world where everything is done on a huge and hectic scale.
I've noticed how much easier things are on a small scale everywhere I've gone this year, not only at my dear little new church. On one of the first days of school, I went to the bookstore to buy an envelope and realized I had left my wallet in my office. I went to put it back, but the woman behind the counter waved me up, "Oh, don't worry about it--you can just pay us later." She didn't know me, since I had just started, but she wrote my name down on a little post-it and stuck it to the cash register. Contrast that with UNC's Student Stores, which have a security guard at the entrance, those alarms by the doors, and roving "eye in the sky" cameras built into the ceiling. They have to have them as the school is so large--but how nice it is to operate in a world where it isn't even necessary.
It's so psychically comforting. I felt like I spent so much time at UNC waiting in endless lines for bored clerks who'd been snowed or hassled or jerked around by too many snotty students who thought that they needed to be pushy to survive (which was basically true). And UNC was largely a pleasant place; it's the South after all. But all that pushing and struggling just to pay your tuition bill or figure out why the library is still fining you for a book you never checked out--it really wears on a person.
It's easy to forget how wearing it is; you practically get used to it and think you have to live that way. My students easily offer critiques of prior ways of living--they imagine that people in the past were impoverished, repressed, dying to break free (etc., etc.)--but it's much harder for them, as it is for me, to offer real critiques of the way we live now. Not just complaints, but insightful assessments of what our modes of living cost us. I can't imagine my life without the mobility I've had that has allowed me to travel and study, and email and cell phones and cars for the masses (like me) make it all possible. But they also mean that our communities are stretched out far, and it can be exhausting just managing it all--even as exciting as it is.
And so in contrast, you're all invited to Washington, PA. I'm sure somebody will be having another picnic some time soon.
posted by Tara | 5:02 PM
5 Comments:
Funny. I find myself either idealizing the past, or thinking, "How did people SURVIVE without convenience a, b or c?"
I think we're pretty adaptable. We scale our expectations up or down pretty easily, whether we realize it or not. Which is why, after a certain income level, we are a) not any happier with more money, and b) we settle into a track of spending that much more, and still wanting more yet.
Ahh, small towns. I never thought I'd miss them, and yet I do. (as long as it's not the small town I grew up in ... hee.)
I hope to find the same level of acceptance and peace that you've found in small town America. It better come quickly. As you know, this week in my small town has been sorely testing my patience.
It takes some adjustment, but as Kate says, we're adaptable creatures. :) And I think you're going to love the peace and wholesomeness of it.
Tara,
have you read any Wendell Berry? He is a champion of small towns, claiming, in fact, that the kind of living you describe can in fact be a more moral way of life. I love the image of you strolling down the street with a homemade blueberry pie!
Hey Erin--no! But yes, he's on the list of people I most want to read. :) Why haven't I yet, I don't know . . .
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