Americans are a mobile people. We drive, we move, we commute, and now in COVIDtide, we telecommute. A recent article in the New York Times suggested that the societal impacts of coronavirus extend well beyond health implications- going so far as to restructure the way we work, and even the layout of a very cities. It seems that technology has finally made good on its promise to liberate us from the office: we can choose to work wherever we want.
If you listen to our rhetoric, diversity (whether cultural, religious or racial) is a good thing; but when you look at our mobile lives, with more freedom of choice than we have ever had in human history, we see quite a different picture. When people can choose where they work or live, they almost always choose to be around people like themselves. This choice actually has a disastrous effect on our city commons- because we are never around people unlike us, we fear them or misunderstand them much more easily. Freedom, choice and mobility has led to polarity and conflict, not utopia.
In this cultural moment, walking to a small neighborhood church is one of the most rebellious things you can do. It makes our religious liturgies exist in space and time. It forces us to be both visible and incarnational in our neighborhoods. And when they see us from their front porch, it forces our neighbors to ask, “Where are all the people that I like in my neighborhood walking to on Sunday mornings?” By walking weekly, we establish rhythms of visibility and presence in our neighborhood; the same neighborhood that we love and serve throughout the week.
