Love of Place



I've never been out of the country (well, I did drop into Canada for about an hour back in college, but that doesn't count), but whenever I meet those who are arriving from places afar their responses are always the same: "I loved my trip, but it feels great to be home", "I realize how much I love my country when I saw the Statue of Liberty", "On touchdown, I love this place."

I know I have similar feelings when I have been away for while whether on vacation or business. There is something about where you call home.

It is that love of place that touches on the previous post. It is that love of place that allows you to embrace the beautiful. It is that love of place that will transform it.

Fr. Andrew Damick speaks eloquently about this in a collection of posts on place.

Follow these link to see what I mean:


The Locus and Economy of Community (The Transfiguration of Place, Part II)

Globalization: An Impediment to Salvation (The Transfiguration of Place, Part III)

Thin Places (The Transfiguration of Place, Part IV)

Comments

Fr. Andrew said…
Thanks for the plug!
9:25 PM
Derek said…
Theron,

Clark Carlton of Faith & Philosophy fame has a similar thread in his podcasts. He seems very concerned that if Orthodoxy is going to thrive in the US, then it will need to "shrink" in a way. In other words, there might not so much be an "American" Orthodox Church as a Church of the South, the North, the East or West.

He also discusses some about the need to unplug from our typical American & technological conventions, given that some of these very American ways are actually only helping us to become ever more transient and disengaged from the Creation.

He can be a little polemical at times, that helps to make his thoughts all the more potent, sometimes.
9:29 AM
Unknown said…
Thanks. I listened to Clark's comments, and he is on to something. Not that we don't need to dream big and on a national and global scale. The global obscures of our love and outreach to the local. What can we do to impact the 5 mile radius around our parish? Should we think and act beyond until we have done that? The food pantry is doing that. We are working on a Teen Drug/Alcohol program that will target that area.

This does not mean that we should encourage foreign missions or other missions projects outside our community, but let's get aggressive with the gospel here.

Speaking of local, let's add Burgoo to next year's Taste of St. Michael.
2:01 PM
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