Showing Up

In the old Hollywood movies, if a character was knocked out, they came to again, raised their head, looked around, and asked, with confusion, “Where am I?”

It’s not a bad question. It may just be my perception, but disorientation seems to be increasing among us. In Robert Farrar Capon’s novel, Exit 36, the main character has a recurring nightmare that he is driving on a freeway with virtually identical rest areas and service plazas every few miles. There are no distinguishing landmarks, just the endless multi-lane ribbon of road. He cannot answer the question, “Where am I?” He begins to grasp that his dream is not simply of a trip to somewhere, but is actually the story of his journey through life itself.

Modern mobility, immigration and urbanization exacerbates the problem. It is no longer common for an adult to live in the same town in which he or she was born, let alone the same farm or house. Almost identical rows of condos, town houses or tract developments make it challenging to identify your dwelling from others. Many of us cannot identify a permanent place called “home” or “hometown.” The place of my birth is stated on my birth certificate, but I never lived in that town. Even having a nostalgia for that home place does not exist for many of us, since there really isn’t a “home place,” just a series of mostly forgotten addresses. Adult life equally becomes a location wherever the necessities of employment take us or, less likely, the whims of scenery, excitement, obligation, culture or personal relationships entice us. “Home” becomes, for the most part, the place where I unpack the moving boxes for a while.

This blends well with asking the question about where my soul is. We are emerging from a long age in which that was defined institutionally and communally. “I am (fill in the appropriate blank) Greek Orthodox, Scottish Presbyterian, Irish Catholic, Southern Baptist,” or one of the many other specific grounded choices, inherited rather than chosen. Even if ethnicity became detached from denomination, most people could identify a particular church group, either inherited or chosen, that they regarded themselves as attached to, although for some more in absentia than attendance.

All that sense of place, of belonging, has been frequently replaced with the contention that “I am spiritual, but not religious,” acknowledging the existence of the soul, but without the necessity of anchoring it in place, in community. Millions today instead have a soul that floats on the waves of life, without direction, anchor or place, much like Capon’s driver forever rolling down a noplace freeway to nowhere. The theology of such souls is, not surprisingly, vacuous. “We are the hollow men,” notes T.S. Elliot, stuffed only with straw.

The Hollywood film character could ask the question with confidence, knowing there was a specific answer. The audience all knew the answer for themselves, and had the security of defined place in their answer. But what happens if “where am I?” is asked, but no one has an answer? The place could be anywhere. As “spiritual” fog replaces the anchor of the Faith delivered down the generations, as color replaces the heritage of being Irish, or German, or African, or Punjabi, as kneejerk ideology and bile replace a grounded commitment to democracy, we are stripped of identity and our spiritual GPS just spins out of control.

In the modern age, the reception of the paradosis, the treasure of the Catholic Tradition passed on to us by past Fathers and Mothers in the Faith, becomes a joy, but also a burden, because with it comes the mandate to pass it on as it was passed to us.

If I ask you for directions to your house, your first and logical question will be “Where are you coming from?” If I can’t tell you, it will make the fairly simple job of giving directions much more complicated. If we are talking to people who have no idea where they are coming from spiritually, no concept even of what genuine spiritual categories might be, passing on the Faith likewise becomes complex. They tend to be hungry for spiritual nourishment, but have no idea how to find it or receive it. Added to the problem is that more than a few have had negative experiences with Christians or strongly held biases that Christians are self-righteous, judgmental bigots or are political fanatics. Sadly, in many cases, there is a basis in fact for these perceptions.

The question thus comes home to us: where are we in this? How do we react in a culture which ignores us if it isn’t directly refuting us, and which permeates both the institutions and the ethos that have gathered us in the past? The assumption that most Americans knew basic Biblical and Christian facts, references such as the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, the meaning of festivals such as Christmas and Easter is no longer viable. Christian education, even within the churches, has declined. In many pews, the worldview of the inhabitants is no different from those who are strangers to church interiors.

For some, the way is clear. Dreher’s (although not necessarily Benedict’s) Benedict Option suggests we flee this degenerate society, circle the wagons and isolate our little pilgrim band. If we cannot actually become cloistered monastics, we can live as apart from the world as possible. Others go in the opposite direction, blending the parts of Christianity most attractive to the society around them into the trendy narratives of the day, whether into Christian Nationalism or liberal politically correct accommodation.

In early Christianity, the Faith was often presented as a choice of the Two Ways, that of the world or that of the Faith. All of the above options go the Way of spiritual obliteration, the freeway to nowhere, even if temporarily popular in some quarters.

We are not offered an option by Jesus. We are told to show up in the world, to be its stewards, its light, its salt and leaven. There are many conversations about how to do this. There are scholarly works on the theology of evangelism. There have been countless lectures, sermons, exhortations and workshops on evangelism. Many seminarians have enthused about “going to the mission field” or “planting a new mission.”

Where are you? Until you show up and actually do it, you are nowhere. Jesus paired up the disciples and sent them into the villages with no material resources to do the job. Nor is it a job of preaching endlessly. Christians understand the mandate to care for the earth, to care for our fellow humans, to proclaim peace, not violence and war, to help the poor and share wealth, to promote healing in all its forms, to comfort the afflicted.

Ultimately, the Church, the community of Christ, has only one message for unbelievers and unchurched: God loves you, and wants you to be his child. It is a universal message, without caveats or restrictions or rules which must first be kept. It is the message of the Father to the Prodigal Son: welcome home, celebrate the feast, no terms and conditions apply.

Whenever church people decide instead to push legislation to forbid things, to establish entrance requirements, to only allow those of finer moral character, to shame people into legalistic compliance, to align with forces favoring the institutional well being of the Church rather than the loving community in Christ, then we lose our Way, we no longer stand in the epicenter of God’s love in the midst of his people.

The disciples Jesus sent out came back excited, reporting the joy of showing up with effective love. You, too, can show up with that love of God reflected, for your family, for your community, for your workmates, for your fellow believers, for the strangers who require only a little extra effort to find and love.