chapter 3

Hsu makes some really good points about the reign of the automobile and its effects on Suburban living.  I definitely share his frustrations, especially with the lack of places to walk and the detrimental effects of the car on community (page 62 describes this well).  Although at the end of the chapter Hsu prescribes walking more and taking the bus as practical steps, these seem to be addressing the symptoms rather than the problems themselves.  How can you walk if there is no place to safely walk and/or no place to walk to?  Also, how can you take the bus if there is no bus that takes you where you are going?  How do we address the geographic issues of suburban layout and its hindrances towards pedestrians and public transportation?

Holy inefficiency - something I definitely need to embrace.  I feel like a lot of my decisions are based around efficiency (Something I realized all the more after being in the Gambia - I'm sure you know what I mean Kaycee).  But love is patient and we are called to wait on God.

Living in Germantown in Philly I feel like I saw a lot of the ways that a community can be completely different because of pedestrian traffic, public transportation, and street culture.  I think those are some of the best things about neighborhoods like that.  You meet people on the street and on buses.  You see interesting things.  You are very aware of your surroundings.  How can we bring these things to the suburbs?

I remember talking to Blake, one of the partners at Jubilee, and he made and interesting point that I thought of while reading this chapter.  As Christians, shouldn't our primary commitment be to our church community?  Most of the time its seems like Christians move from one place to another because of jobs, schools, living costs, or family, and then find a church in the area subsequent to that.  Perhaps moving and deciding where to live should be more determined by our local family of believers.  This is not to say that Christians should never move for these other reasons, but perhaps those are things that should be discerned by both the individual AND the community.

This chapter brought up some really good points about the discipline of stability, which is something I know that I struggle with.  It looks a little different for us in this phase of our lives I think, being in college or recently graduated than it does for someone like Hsu who owns a home, works, and has a family, but I feel like we are called to stillness and stability to some extent as well.  What does this look like for us?  How much exploration, travel, trying new things, and experiencing new places is beneficial to us?  And how much of it is an excuse and a means to run away from things, perhaps even the will of God?  When I look over the past couple years of my life I am somewhat overwhelmed by all of the people and places and feel like I have not really committed whole-heartedly to any of them.  When I look forward to my plans for the rest of this year not much is changing in terms of this whirlwind.  I know that there is an aspect of this season of life that is meant for exploring and getting to know yourself so that you can commit and be more stable in the future, but I also think that this phase of life could be taken advantage of and used as an excuse for an excess of wanderlust (and maybe I am doing this?)  Is this really any different than thinking "this is college, I can go crazy and get drunk every weekend, but I'll be responsible after I graduate?"  I need to wrestle with this.

I've felt really convicted lately by God to be still, and I am not sure what this looks like. Perhaps it means that I need to spend more quiet time with God, or perhaps it means I need to stop running away from Columbia.  I recently read this in Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation, "Fickleness and indecision are signs of self-love.  If you can never make up your mind what God wills for you, but are always veering from one opinion to another, from one practice to another, from one method to another, it may be an indication that you are trying to get around God's will and do your own with a quiet conscience.  As soon as God gets you in one monastery you want to be in another.  As soon as you taste one way of prayer, you want to try another.  You are always making resolutions and breaking them by counter-resolutions.  You ask your confessor questions and do not remember the answers.  Before you finish one book you begin another, and with every book your read you change the whole plan of your interior life.  Soon you will have no interior life at all.  Your whole existence will be a patchwork of confused desires and day-dreams and velleities in which you succeed in nothing except defeating the work of grace: for all this is, is an elaborate subconscious device of your nature to defeat God, Whose work in you soul demands the sacrifice of all that you desire and delight in, and, indeed, of all that you are.  So keep still, and let him do some work."  This same theme of keeping still came up in our bible study this past week as we looked at Jacob wrestling with God and a reference to this in Hosea.  What does it mean for me to keep still in college and in the suburbs?  Am I running away from God?  Am I seeking to change my surroundings rather than seeking transformation where I am?