Do you know where you live?
Why you should know more than just your own address if you hope to address the brokenness of this world.
The small-town Amish country where I grew up and the Memphis metropolitan area where I now live don’t have the most in common. Who’d have guessed it?!
Fact check me all you want; certain differences are undeniable. Wooster has superior donuts. Memphis wins the BBQ battle. One has school in the midst of snowstorms, while the other cancels when snow is simply in the forecast. Driving in Wooster you need to watch out for horse poop and potholes, while driving in Memphis requires you to keep an eye out for drag racing and potholes. Well, now that I think about it… hatred of potholes is actually a strong similarity. In fact, potholes are probably one of the world’s greatest equalizers. #FillThePotholes2020
But the uniqueness of each place is far deeper than these surface differences. Every place has its own history and its own hopes and dreams. No two places on earth have the same combination cultures, businesses, geography, and people. That’s why if we’re seeking to live faithfully, we must first work to truly know the place we’re seeking to be faithful in.
Manifest Faithfulness
The reason I felt compelled to write about the concept of place is largely due to a novelist, essayist, and poet from Kentucky. I read Wendell Berry’s book Jayber Crow for the first time this spring and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Typically, I’m always so excited about what I’m going to read next that I wrongfully skip over contemplating a book when I finish it. That’s not the case with Jayber Crow. I can’t stop thinking and talking about that book any more than department stores can’t help but put up Christmas decorations in October (not that I’m complaining).
Part of the reason is because that book—like it’s done for many others—stirred up a longing in my soul to belong to and know a place well. Not from a distance. Not the Lonely Planet version. No, I want to intimately and thoroughly know where I live.
If I’m being honest though, I’m guilty of occasionally focusing more on where I’m going than where I am. Other times I find myself imagining that it must be easier to be faithful somewhere—anywhere—else but here.
But I’m not meant to mentally live in a place I don’t physically live in. I can only be faithful by trusting God and getting my hands dirty wherever He has me—something a character in Jayber Crow gets tragically wrong.
He was lonely because he could imagine himself as anything but himself and as anywhere but where he was.
The reason that character was so miserable was because the fruits of friendship, love, and life don’t grow in an abstract realm. We’re physical beings. That’s why faithfulness must be manifested in real situations with real people in real places. That’s why we must commit to learning about where we live.
Learning Where You Live
That’s also why I’m ashamed that it took me a year and a half of living in Memphis before I went to the National Civil Rights Museum.
Less than 30 minutes away from me is the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. This city and this country changed in that place. Yet I couldn’t be bothered to make time for it.
Once I finally went to the museum last month, I realized how little I knew about my city. I had no idea what circumstances led to the protest that MLK was in Memphis to support. The significance of the “I AM A MAN” signs held by protesters was completely lost on me. Only now have I begun to grasp the weight of those signs representing protesters who felt so dehumanized by people in power that they believed it necessary to remind those in power that black men are human beings too. And as a city, we’re still grappling with the effects of that tragedy.
I’m slowly realizing that if I’m going to love and serve the city of Memphis, I must know the city of Memphis. How can I help heal wounds that I don’t know exist? How can I consistently be an effective witness if I don’t speak the cultural language of the area? How can I lead our city forward if I don’t even know where we are?
Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit can work in the midst of naivete and mistakes. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness and our effectiveness for the Kingdom of God is not based on our competence, but the Spirit’s power. Praise God for that! However, that’s no reason to be willfully ignorant. Instead, part of the way God empowers us is through our God-given and developed abilities to reason, analyze, and contemplate. Don’t neglect those gifts.
Though this list is far from comprehensive, here are some questions I encourage you to ask yourself about the area you live:
What part of our history still affects our present?
What are the biggest changes of the past 10 years?
What type of culture exists here?
What makes this area uniquely beautiful?
What makes this area uniquely broken?
How is God already moving here?
Common Ground
A lot of this post has focused on gaining an understanding of what is unique about the corner of the world you find yourself in. Contextualized faithfulness is essential.
However, I don’t want to overlook what every place has in common too.
Every city is imperfect. No town has it all figured out. So, we should all hold our perspectives with humility.
But also, beauty and goodness are everywhere Even in the darkest of environments, there is always a hint of light. The whole earth is under God’s sovereign care.
So, take heart! Wherever you are, God is there too. He’s already working in your city in a million different ways you just haven’t noticed yet. Hence the valuable work of learning about where you live. The more you know about your city, the more you’ll be able to recognize how God’s working. The more you notice how God’s working, the more opportunities you’ll have to come alongside Him and be faithfully present.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite verses: Jeremiah 29:7.
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
The Rec Center
My well-established love of Tom Hanks combined with my more recently developed love of 90s romcoms made Sleepless in Seattle the feel-good movie I needed right now: 7/10 would recommend.
After voting through absentee ballots throughout college, I early voted in-person for the first time this past weekend and it was surprisingly exhilarating and easy: 10/10 would recommend exercising your civic duty.
I recently finished Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. Whether you agree or disagree with its premise/conclusion, it’s a worthwhile, heartbreaking, and well-researched read: 8.5/10 would recommend.
When your mask smells like the meal you made the day before: 2/10 would not recommend salmon-scented masks.
This hype video celebrating the return of Ohio State football this weekend: 9/10 would recommend getting goosebumps from this video.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash