Taegan Goddard quotes WSJ, “‘America’s identity as a unified nation is eroding, with Republican- and Democratic-led states dividing into separate spheres, each with its own policies governing the economic, social and political rules of life,’ the Wall Street Journal reports.” In her latest magnificent tome, “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland,” Salena Zito also sees the divide, but she dives deeper than mere voting patterns.
Zito sees the divide in terms of “people of place” and “the placeless.” People of place line up roughly conservative and the placeless line up roughly progressive. People of place are largely small town and rural while the placeless are largely big city. This in turn aligns with blue states being states dominated by a large urban center and red states being otherwise. So there is value in Zito’s categorizations. But as I read the book, and thought about it since, I thought about all the people I know in large cities that match more closely to people of place than the placeless. I also thought of those in rural areas I know that act decidedly as if they were the placeless. Now, of course, all such categorization come with exceptions, but the more I have thought about it, the more I have thought that I was considering more than the usual exceptions. It seems to me that having and belonging to a place is about more than geography.
That’s when I thought about one of the parables Jesus told towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount:
Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and its collapse was great.”
It’s not about the home per se, it is about the foundation of the home – it is about rootedness. I then reflected again on the exceptions to Zito’s categories that I know and they lined almost perfectly – the people of place in big cities were church folk and vice versa. Church folk, people genuinely committed to Jesus Christ take their home with them, regardless of where or how they live.
That said, I know lots of liberal Christians and lots of conservative without faith – again, always exceptions. But it sure seems to me that things just work better when God is around. Those liberal Christians I know have less of an edge to them and those irreligious conservatives are typically open to faith even if it is not theirs personally.
I am headed to church this morning, and 95% of the time going makes my life the week following better. (Again, exceptions to every rule.) But it is also the last time before a forced hiatus. (I am having my right knee replaced this coming Wednesday and will be physically incapable of getting to or from church for a least a week, perhaps longer.) But I still want life to work well – and so I turn to prayer and make God the foundation of my house.
But if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the Euphrates River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
