The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14, The Message)
Like many, I have books stacked all over my house. I’m reading several of them – some with intent, and others in bits and pieces. The unfinished reading occasionally shames me. I started George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards years ago. I’m close to the end, but not there yet. I got interested in Jan Karon’s “At Home in Mitford” after reading Lauren Winner’s memoir, so I started that. Luci Shaw’s “The Crime of Living Cautiously” caught my attention while browsing around in our church library so I checked that out (they’re probably wondering where it is). This past summer I purchased Michael Card’s “Scribbling in the Sand” after someone had given me a gift certificate to our church bookstore. I have yet to complete Adam Nicholson’s “God’s Secretaries.” And then there’s the massive “Team of Rivals” that I had heard was good . . . got through chapter one or two, and then laid it aside. Honestly, I have no idea when I’ll get back to that one.
But from time to time I do finish a book – and the last one I closed having made it to the endnotes is a fine volume by David Goetz, “Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul.”
The premise is simple enough and clear from the title. Life in the suburbs is spiritually hazardous. There’s something about the way we live out here that shrivels the soul, the way we shop and drive and shuttle kids about and choose schools and eat out and TIVO programs we couldn’t sit and watch. Goetz takes what looks comfortable and enviable and names it a whitewashed tomb; pretty outside and rotting inside.
This gets my attention because I live in the suburbs. The life he’s talking about is my life. I did carpool this morning and then delivered my daughter’s overnight bag to the mother who’s hosting a spend-the-night birthday party tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go to my son’s basketball game.
As for the content of Goetz’s book, what I love are the eight spiritual disciplines for suburban life. This appeals to me because it is fundamentally positive and redemptive. It says that life in the suburbs does not have to be spiritually deadening, “toxic” to use Goetz’s adjective of choice. That’s good news, especially if you’re a suburbanite.
It seems to me that the danger of living in the suburbs can be summed up this way: the suburbs quietly cultivate an expectation of ease and attractiveness that shapes how we look at the world and live our days. Without knowing it we begin to expect that our lives should be comfortable; comfortable homes and well kept yards and easy to access stores that have anything and everything we might need at any hour of the day. My son recently needed a prescription filled. I had forgotten to do it and this oversight hit my awareness at about 10:00 p.m. The next day was scheduled in a way that made it difficult for Marnie and me to run this errand – so I went to the 24 hr CVS. No problem.
Suburban life produces people that don’t know how to suffer, that can’t grasp phrases like “cost of discipleship.” Luci Shaw (in her book mentioned above) maintains that the point of life is not my security. But security is exactly what lures many to the suburbs. There is a hint of escapism out here. Out here we’ll not have to deal wit all the crap that happens in the city and all the crappy people who make that stuff happen. Out here we’ll put our kids in large SUVs and they’ll be safe on the roads. Or so we think. The escapism is mingled with a fair amount of illusion.
The aim of life in the suburbs is the same as life anywhere: to follow Jesus and live the Jesus life. That can be done in the suburbs. What Goetz is warning us against is the very subtle tendency to use the suburbs as a way of buffering ourselves against the Jesus way.
In his oft quoted translation of John 1:14, Eugene Peterson says that “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” That includes the neighborhood you live in, regardless of where it’s located. This is a season for declaring the presence of God among us. Our task is to search him out, to seek him with all our hearts. Some places make that particularly hard to do. Thanks to Goetz and the disciplines explored in “Death by Suburb,” I’ve got a better sense of how to do it in my place.
Like many, I have books stacked all over my house. I’m reading several of them – some with intent, and others in bits and pieces. The unfinished reading occasionally shames me. I started George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards years ago. I’m close to the end, but not there yet. I got interested in Jan Karon’s “At Home in Mitford” after reading Lauren Winner’s memoir, so I started that. Luci Shaw’s “The Crime of Living Cautiously” caught my attention while browsing around in our church library so I checked that out (they’re probably wondering where it is). This past summer I purchased Michael Card’s “Scribbling in the Sand” after someone had given me a gift certificate to our church bookstore. I have yet to complete Adam Nicholson’s “God’s Secretaries.” And then there’s the massive “Team of Rivals” that I had heard was good . . . got through chapter one or two, and then laid it aside. Honestly, I have no idea when I’ll get back to that one.
But from time to time I do finish a book – and the last one I closed having made it to the endnotes is a fine volume by David Goetz, “Death by Suburb: How to Keep the Suburbs from Killing Your Soul.”
The premise is simple enough and clear from the title. Life in the suburbs is spiritually hazardous. There’s something about the way we live out here that shrivels the soul, the way we shop and drive and shuttle kids about and choose schools and eat out and TIVO programs we couldn’t sit and watch. Goetz takes what looks comfortable and enviable and names it a whitewashed tomb; pretty outside and rotting inside.
This gets my attention because I live in the suburbs. The life he’s talking about is my life. I did carpool this morning and then delivered my daughter’s overnight bag to the mother who’s hosting a spend-the-night birthday party tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go to my son’s basketball game.
As for the content of Goetz’s book, what I love are the eight spiritual disciplines for suburban life. This appeals to me because it is fundamentally positive and redemptive. It says that life in the suburbs does not have to be spiritually deadening, “toxic” to use Goetz’s adjective of choice. That’s good news, especially if you’re a suburbanite.
It seems to me that the danger of living in the suburbs can be summed up this way: the suburbs quietly cultivate an expectation of ease and attractiveness that shapes how we look at the world and live our days. Without knowing it we begin to expect that our lives should be comfortable; comfortable homes and well kept yards and easy to access stores that have anything and everything we might need at any hour of the day. My son recently needed a prescription filled. I had forgotten to do it and this oversight hit my awareness at about 10:00 p.m. The next day was scheduled in a way that made it difficult for Marnie and me to run this errand – so I went to the 24 hr CVS. No problem.
Suburban life produces people that don’t know how to suffer, that can’t grasp phrases like “cost of discipleship.” Luci Shaw (in her book mentioned above) maintains that the point of life is not my security. But security is exactly what lures many to the suburbs. There is a hint of escapism out here. Out here we’ll not have to deal wit all the crap that happens in the city and all the crappy people who make that stuff happen. Out here we’ll put our kids in large SUVs and they’ll be safe on the roads. Or so we think. The escapism is mingled with a fair amount of illusion.
The aim of life in the suburbs is the same as life anywhere: to follow Jesus and live the Jesus life. That can be done in the suburbs. What Goetz is warning us against is the very subtle tendency to use the suburbs as a way of buffering ourselves against the Jesus way.
In his oft quoted translation of John 1:14, Eugene Peterson says that “the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.” That includes the neighborhood you live in, regardless of where it’s located. This is a season for declaring the presence of God among us. Our task is to search him out, to seek him with all our hearts. Some places make that particularly hard to do. Thanks to Goetz and the disciplines explored in “Death by Suburb,” I’ve got a better sense of how to do it in my place.
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