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jenny_islanderI am reading only the introduction to the study guide today.
The promises of the Good Life as recorded in Scripture, says Foster, boil down to "provision, place, and personality." I looked at "provision" yesterday. Today's topic is "place."
Foster defines place as "a mutually understood and accepted set of personal relationships that give identιty to one's life." (Italics his.) He specifies that the mutual understanding must indeed be mutual: everyone involved must have "the same expectation."
Place is more than physical location, as a neighborhood is more than houses. Place is one's identιty as a person among other people by whom one is perceived. Place is mutual connection, the ability to predict and plan, the knowledge of where help may be found. Place means having both a past and a future. Being homeless does not merely mean having no house. It means being displaced.
Making sure that everyone has a place that they can live in is a major concern of the Law and the Prophets. "Woe to those who add house to house and field to field," says Isaiah, "until there is no place left and they dwell alone in the land." (Isaiah 5:8) A place--a set of mutually understood rights--for people who do not have a family network to support them is defined and defended, and the consequences for trespassing upon--sinning against, displacing--the poor, the orphaned, and so on are just as clear. In the New Testament, the Church is also meant to have a place for everyone. Foster warns against both trying to enforce the New Testament teachings about place, and denying them altogether. The one is slavery and misery, a reservation of freedom and dignity to the people at the top of the heap and denial of full humanity to everyone else. The other is a denial of human connection and a refusal to honor human vulnerability. He wrote Celebration of Discipline before hippies had gray hair, and he saw firsthand the consequences that free spirits imposed on other people. It's all very well to talk about meeting and parting and meeting again in joy when you are a young adult with a childhood bedroom waiting for you if things go wrong.
Place is a description of human need, not a prescription for human perfection. The Disciplines described in these books are about that sense of place, about meeting people where they are.
The promises of the Good Life as recorded in Scripture, says Foster, boil down to "provision, place, and personality." I looked at "provision" yesterday. Today's topic is "place."
Foster defines place as "a mutually understood and accepted set of personal relationships that give identιty to one's life." (Italics his.) He specifies that the mutual understanding must indeed be mutual: everyone involved must have "the same expectation."
Place is more than physical location, as a neighborhood is more than houses. Place is one's identιty as a person among other people by whom one is perceived. Place is mutual connection, the ability to predict and plan, the knowledge of where help may be found. Place means having both a past and a future. Being homeless does not merely mean having no house. It means being displaced.
Making sure that everyone has a place that they can live in is a major concern of the Law and the Prophets. "Woe to those who add house to house and field to field," says Isaiah, "until there is no place left and they dwell alone in the land." (Isaiah 5:8) A place--a set of mutually understood rights--for people who do not have a family network to support them is defined and defended, and the consequences for trespassing upon--sinning against, displacing--the poor, the orphaned, and so on are just as clear. In the New Testament, the Church is also meant to have a place for everyone. Foster warns against both trying to enforce the New Testament teachings about place, and denying them altogether. The one is slavery and misery, a reservation of freedom and dignity to the people at the top of the heap and denial of full humanity to everyone else. The other is a denial of human connection and a refusal to honor human vulnerability. He wrote Celebration of Discipline before hippies had gray hair, and he saw firsthand the consequences that free spirits imposed on other people. It's all very well to talk about meeting and parting and meeting again in joy when you are a young adult with a childhood bedroom waiting for you if things go wrong.
Place is a description of human need, not a prescription for human perfection. The Disciplines described in these books are about that sense of place, about meeting people where they are.
