As I looked back over the last few posts I found myself wondering ‘what is it that makes these building blocks unique to suburbia?’ I wasn’t satisfied with what I had written.
In some ways they are not that unique – they may apply across the board to a large degree, but if these are essential building blocks in mission then suburbia does present some unique challenges. I want to take a few moments to reflect on these some more and make it a bit more specific. If 90% of Aussies live in suburbia then this is where the vast bulk of our mission will occur, so its important we understand it. WARNING – I am going to write this in one fell swoop so it could be a looong post!
1. Proximity – With blocks of land decreasing in size all the time no one could say we don’t live closely together! But proximity is about so much more than physical distance. We can live in each other’s pockets and somehow still be miles apart. Proximity relates to the choice to be close rather than simply live nearby. Its a whole different deal.
I have quoted Hugh Mackay’s Winter Close novel several times on this blog, but I will do it again because I believe his observations are profound. As you read these quotes bear in mind that Dante’s definition of hell is ‘proximity without intimacy’… Mackay is writing a novel about the lives of residents in a Sydney suburban street:
Rich is fond of saying that the thing about Winter Close is that it fosters a real sense of community. That’s a big claim and I wish I could share Rich’s confidence in making it. Now that Sydney has grown to four million, communities are hard to come by: a common complaint among Sydneysiders is that ‘we don’t know our neighbours’ – as if that’s the neighbours fault. I’ve given up saying ‘why don’t you knock on their door and introduce yourself?’ The puzzled looks I receive make it clear I have missed the point: plenty of people like not knowing their neighbours and only pretend to complain about it. Suburbia offers the wonderful cloak of anonymity for those who want the security of proximity without any of the demands of intimacy P.10
The contract between neighbours is based on resistance to intimacy, so a quite different kind of closeness becomes possible: easy open, comfortable, but devoid of any ultimate responsibility or any glimpses into each other’s souls. These are adjacent lives – sometimes even parallel lives – rather than shared lives. We compensate for our physical proximity by keeping our emotional distance. These are not like relationships between friends, or even between people who work closely together – I know Maddy better than I know Rich, Abel, or Mrs Spenser, or Joe Riley. Perhaps the thing suburban life offers us is the possibility of living the life of a herd without the bonds of a tribe: proximity, familiarity, trust, support… but not intimacy. When we cross that line we cease to be neighbours and become something else P.156
We have made the choice to be present in our community in a way that allows for relationships to develop and I believe that choice is absolutely vital if we are to go beyond the ‘smile and wave’. By that I mean we have chosen for Danelle not to work and I have chosen to only work 3 1/2 days a week out of the suburb. It simply means we are able to be around and have time for people rather than having to squeeze people into the butt ends of our days.
Of course not everyone wants ‘proximity’. Many people want to be able to live in peace and quiet and not have anything to do with neighbours and local community. Some just want the ‘contract’ Mackay writes of. And that’s fine if that’s what they choose, but as I see it there are plenty of people who really do want to connect, but aren’t sure how to start. We don’t live in a communal society any more and therein lies much of the issue.
I think Mackay is right on the money when he observes that suburbia conditions us to be physically close but emotionally distant. As such I believe real emotional proximity is perhaps one of the greatest challenges in the burbs and is no longer in the DNA of those growing up in these areas.
2. Regularity:
Question – What is it that drives much of suburban life?
Answer – economics
Truth is that the suburban dream is to live in a really nice house, drive nice cars, have nice holidays, send the kids to good schools and so on… You get the idea. There is a certain lifestyle that is supposed to accompany suburban living and somehow we have grown to feel we are entitled to it.
However to maintain that lifestyle (or even to ‘buy into it’) requires a truckload of cash. Therefore… it means often families have two parents working, or husbands do the ‘fly in fly out’ mining jobs where you can easily earn 6 figures just by showing up. The end result of all this working is that people are often ridiculously busy!
Many people I know are flat out simply trying to pay for the life they believe they are entitled to. Its kind of ironic to hear people say they moved to the suburbs for the ‘lifestyle’… Because to be frank many of the ‘lifestyles’ I observe do not entice me at all.
But because there is a standard of living to maintain people must continue to work and the end result it very little time for relationships.
And… Christians are as guilty of this as anyone else. By and large we do not model a different way of living and I believe we ought to own that and say it is shameful – confess it as sin. We have bought the ‘you need more stuff’ lie also and we work our butts off too, (as someone once said) ‘to buy stuff we don’t need to impress people we don’t like’.
If we are to have time for people then it will require us to choose to live at a different pace and to choose to forego some of the things we may believe we are entitled to or we may feel it ‘neceesary’ to own. (Repeat after me ‘I do really do not need a flat screen TV’) I accept that there is a certain level of economic reality we must live with – it costs money to live – but I believe we are continually sucked into a life we can’t afford unless we have credit cards and high paying jobs.
In a world driven by economics, where suburbia is the hub, regular time with people is hard to come by. Which means suburban mission will be a very slow process among the groups who work long hours. Almost everyone is busy – Christians included – so relationships are not about to catalyse easily. (This is where youth and young adult work is different because young people and students have so much more control over their time)
In our own community the ‘fly in fly outs’ (FIFO’s) make up around 20% of the community – not because the guys want to be away – but because they earn such huge money in such a short space of time. The cost on family and friendships is enormous because these guys never really get to settle anywhere and be ‘locals’.
If we are going to engage regularly with people it will happen partially as we choose not to allow the bottom line to be our prime motivation. We can’t control what anyone else does but we can choose to walk a different path.
3. Depth xxx dvd I’m not sure suburbanites are shallow people, but I do think its hard for relationships to go deep without those first two criteria being in place.
Most of the folks I know do think deeply from time to time and we have had some serious conversations about life with most of our friends, but depth only comes with time spent.
4. Conflict download pink panther 2 online – now this is one of those things we all keep away from, but I do think it has a higher avoidance factor in the burbs.
In ‘pleasantville’ people don’t fight so when things get icky they just avoid each other.
One of the problems of our suburban life is that as much as I have a number of friends, if we had a bit of biffo we could live in the same suburb for the next 5 years and possibly never bump into each other. My observation is that tension in the burbs is often left undealt with. Rather than sit down and sort out differences people will simply drift off into different social circles.
As we speak of Jesus in the suburbs we will make some people uncomfortable and they may choose to ‘move away from us’. They may never tell us, but instead may just drift out of our world and avoid us.
That can be quite soul destroying to have it happen.
5. Message
And this is where the brown stuff hits the fan…
The gospel of suburbia is ‘just a little bit more (and then I’ll be content)’ but the Christian message is absolutely, totally contrary to the me centred, safe, comfortable, affluent suburban life we are supposed to desire.
Yes, of course Jesus came to give us ‘life to the full’ but he also spoke of self denial, of taking up a cross, of suffering. They killed him for his message! These are not words suburbanites like to hear. It is a hard gospel to sell. There is nothing in suburbia that really lends itself to suffering and downward mobility.
It much more palatable to preach ‘middle class values with a little dab of Jesus on top’, but as we have done that we seen the ultimate syncretism where in many places we now equate middle class morality with Christianity.
I actually believe the radical Jesus is the most attractive Jesus by far, but it is increasingly difficult for us to speak of him because we are part of the system. We live in the burbs and are conditioned by them. We know that Jesus less and less and we find it hard to speak of him with any integrity.
How do we reclaim our message and speak it with integrity and passion because let’s face it, if we are to have a message then we must first live it.
All the relationship building in the world counts for nothing if we are not able to live and speak of the radical Jesus who calls us to die to ourselves and come follow him – and there find life.
I believe this is a message suburbanites need to hear and desperately want to hear, because something inside will never be satisfied by consumptive practices. There is something wild, inviting and liberating about the real gospel message and I hope we are able to live it and speak it.
Danelle and I find ourselves continually grappling with how we live and why. We find ourselves constantly wondering what our ‘lifetstyle’ says about the Jesus we follow, because it says something….
6. The Supernatural The beauty of this element is that God can show up wherever he like! So here I don’t think we can make any case for the burbs having unique characteristics.
Anyway, I feel better for having digested my own thoughts more. I was aware that my first few posts were quite (unintentionally) generic, but I think I have been able to grapple with the issues a bit more here.
I know there are other suburbanites out there reading. Would you agree with my assessments or is there stuff you would challenge?
