Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe and Producer Carl Thorpe discuss their relationship to place and how that impacts their faith and the Church.
Transcript
DDM – Hello and welcome to The Priest and the Prof. I am your host, the Rev. Deborah Duguid-May.
MET – And I’m Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe.
DDM – This podcast is a product of Trinity Episcopal Church in Greece, New York. I’m an Episcopal priest of 26 years, and Elizabeth has been a rhetoric professor since 2010. And so join us as we explore the intersections of faith, community, politics, philosophy, and action.
MET – Hello and welcome! Today, I have the privilege of having Producer Carl on the mic with me.
CRT – Hello!
MET – Yeah, so it’s an exciting day. Carl and I want to talk to you a little bit about “place,” so I would like to tell you a little bit about my past.
MET – I think I have shared with you that I moved around a lot when I was young. When I share how, I guess you would say, “mobile” I was growing up, people often assume I’m from a military family – but actually it was oil. My dad was just a plain old oil hand for most of my life, so when the oil ran out in one place, we would pick up and move to where it was flowing in another place. Those are called booms and busts. We moved to where the oil was booming, and we left when it busted – to go to another boom. And that’s pretty much what we did until I was a teen. Then when I was in my early teens we settled in the Permian Basin, which is one of the top oil producing areas in the nation. Our connection to oil waxed and waned over the years, but much of my life was shaped a lot less by family connection or tradition than petroleum.
MET – Because of that, when I was a kid, I had a different understanding of place than a lot of my friends did. So many of my friends had a hometown or a house they grew up in or a best friend since kindergarten. I had layovers. I had places that I would be for a year, maybe two, just long enough to make a few connections, and then start all over. So place meant something very different to me when I was growing up. Place wasn’t something you were connected to – it was somewhere you were going to. I didn’t have a hometown or a place I grew up – I had a favorite town I had lived it. That is a VERY different perspective on life than what most kids get. For example, I liked Bracketville better than Abilene because there was a lot more outside adventure, but I realized as I got older, that as a teen Bracketville would have been terrible because there were no opportunities for teens to be involved or do anything in Bracketville. Abilene (and later Midland), had opportunities to be involved in music or theater, for example. Bracketville teens just snuck across the border into Mexico for the weekend and got hammered. I cannot emphasize enough to you that these are not realizations a 14 year old should be having. They aren’t traumatizing, in any way. But an 8th grader should not be so familiar with the tenuous nature of place that she can recognize that the place she lived in while she was in 2nd grade that she loved so much would not have been good for her while she was a freshman. These are adult realizations.
MET – All of this is to say, I don’t feel about place the same way a lot of people do. I’m not sentimental about any particular town or house. I guess if you HAD to locate my place in any way, you could say I’m from the desert, but honestly, I’ve lived in New York so long, that it rivals how long I lived in the dry, arid lands because I also lived in the hill country and coastal plains while I was in school and grad school, and that was more than a decade of my life, as well. I am, in a very real way, placeless. My home is where my husband and my kid are. And right now that is here, outside of Rochester, NY. If we picked up and moved tomorrow, I would not leave my home behind, because it would come with me. My home is very much a matter of the people I love, and has little to do with WHERE I am.
MET – Now, I say that, but at the same time, there are some markers of “place” that even I can’t get away from. Our first apartment in Greece, NY will always hold a special spot in my heart because it was where my kid spoke their first words and took their first steps. It was a crappy place to live in a not-so-great spot – but it was the home I could provide for a while, and it was the stepping stone to a somewhat better life. Did I like it? No. But it did mean something to me. When I see pictures of it, I do feel a certain amount of sentimentality. But I’ll never go there again. I don’t long for it. It’s just a spot where special things happened, and I remember that.
MET – And I recognize some places are more special than others. I, like many people, was horrified when Donald Trump demolished the East Wing. You can argue all you want that the ballroom is an improvement (it’s not – if you have seen pics of that and thought, yeah, that looks great, then please don’t go into interior decorating), but it is nouveau riche and garish. But that’s not what bothered most people. What bothered most people is that he tore down a whole wing of the White House. That is the People’s House. There’s something special about that place. About that house. The fact that somebody could do something so flippant and just tear it down was astounding to so many in the public. That’s not a strip mall. It’s not JUST a building. It’s a place that matters.
MET – And I’m not ready to make the grand proclamation that place doesn’t matter at all! It matters that I’m from Texas. That affects the way I talk and think and eat and a whole host of things. But my cultural background and where I happen to be are two different things. Yes, my heritage is one thing. But the physical spot I am in is just that – the physical spot I am in. And that is a matter of circumstance – not great, theological or philosophical meaning
CRT – Unlike you, we didn’t move around a whole lot when I was young. We moved to the San Antonio area in Texas when I was very young and, even though my parents divorced when I was in elementary school, both remained in the same area until I was in high school, and even then when my dad moved away, I stayed with my Mom and step-dad until I left for college. Even so, I didn’t feel a huge attachment to the homes we lived in. Sure, I had my room and my things, but I don’t have a lot of nostalgia for the places I lived.
CRT – We didn’t have an exclusive church home, either. Growing up Catholic, it was vitally important that we attended church every Saturday evening or Sunday morning, so it was often a matter of finding a Mass at a time that we were able or wanted to attend rather than making time for a specific church. I didn’t participate in many activities at the churches we attended, both because of our inconsistent attendance at any one specific parish and the fact that those churches didn’t have a whole lot of activities during the week for kids and teens. So it should come as no surprise that I didn’t feel much connection to “church” as a place either.
CRT – It may not come as a surprise, then, that when I went away to college, I didn’t find myself missing church and therefore didn’t connect with a church community when I left. Church had always just been a thing that I did on the weekends out of a sense of obligation rather than a sense of belonging. It wasn’t until I started attending church with you, Elizabeth, in grad school that I ever felt that kind of connection, like I had a “church home.” But that wasn’t because of the physical place. It was a home because of the people there and what we did in that place. That connection is something that I have wanted to find and cultivate for our kid. A sense of belonging to a church, not because I want them to be connected to a physical place, but because I want them connected to the people and what a church does.
MET – Of course, as is my wont, I’m going to tell you a little bit about some comm theory!
CRT – Shocking!
MET – I know! Come for the churchy stuff, stay for the intro lesson that you ignored while you were in college, right? Actually, this is something that Deborah would find interesting if she were here, because I know she is really fascinated by things like architecture, etc. But what I want to talk to you about is something called “material rhetoric”. I think I may have mentioned it before, but I want to talk about it again. This may well seem like a contradiction in terms – rhetoric is literally just words, so How can it be material? Well, that’s what I want to address.
MET – There are a couple of ways to think about material rhetoric – you can think of material rhetoric in the sense that rhetoric itself is a force in the world – it makes material change. Carl and I have been talking about this recently; we have been going back and forth. We can talk about rhetoric as an actual thing that causes action – it is material in the sense that it is both a product and produces. Or you can think about material things that ARE rhetoric, or rhetorical. And it’s that second one I want to focus on.
MET – This is this concept that material things can be rhetorical, they can make an argument. One of the most common examples is something like a memorial or a museum. Many of you have probably either been to Washington, D.C., or have seen pictures. And you may have seen, or seen images of two pretty unique things: the Vietnam War Memorial or the Korean War Memorial. These two memorial really stand out in relationship to the other memorials in DC. Now, I want you to think of the Lincoln Memorial for a second – huge, white, imposing – it’s really a testament to a giant of a man and a life well-lived. Many of the memorials in D.C. are dedicated to glory and triumph – they want us to remember what we have accomplished. The Vietnam and Korean memorials are very different. They tell very different stories. Soldiers’ names are written on black walls, and on the Korean wall, ghostly images are coming out of it. These memorials aren’t meant to inspire feelings of glory – they are dark. They are gloomy. These memorials tell stories about wars that killed a lot of people – and maybe we didn’t come out on top. These memorials mourn the dead as much as they celebrate them. These memorials were designed not to make everybody feel amazing about our accomplishments, but to make us stop and think about what we lost. THAT’S what is meant by “material rhetoric.” These are material things – they’re made of stone and iron and even water – but they make an argument. They tell stories. Museum layouts are designed to fashion a narrative. Where I went to school, where Carl and I went to school, is very clearly an old military school based on design and layout.
MET – There is something that the material realities of a thing, or a place, SAY about the message, or even truth of that place. And that I get that way more than just blind allegiance to a place because of sentimental connection. I may not understand why a person is deeply connected to a place emotionally, but I understand that some places make arguments. I understand that some places are telling stories. And I think when it comes to church, I am much more interested in that, the story, than some emotional connection to a building. What story does the church tell? Does the church say, we were once big and bustling but now we can’t fill the pews? Does the church say we have created a space where everyone has room and we are trying to meet all of our congregent’s needs? Those are two VERY different statements!!
MET – I never got wrapped up in loving a church or a specific church spot just because I was never at any church long enough to get enamoured. But that also taught me that God is not spatially bound. I was going to find God in any number of churches. The building was just a facade. The church, like my home, was about the people in it. And I also learned that the people in it could be good or bad arguments for God in ways that buildings did not always mirror. A beautiful visage did not always mean a Godly church.
MET – Material rhetoric is a big part of church life – we claim that material things have argumentative force all the time. We claim that the bread is the body and the wine is the blood, and somehow this means something. These physical things are a part of our metaphysical experience. But I think because liturgical churches get really caught up in the physical, they tend to…get caught up in the physical. God is not bound by our limitations. God is not bound by our buildings. God is not bound by our rhetoric or even our spaces. God is beyond materiality.
MET – In the Gospel of John the writer tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. That term used for “word” there is logos. It can mean word, but it can also mean “reason.” It’s where we get our word “logic” but also “logo.”. God has always been with us – as reason, as symbol. But not as a physical place, necessarily. Now, that is a claim I don’t think Deborah would like because she is kind of obsessed with bodies and the physicality of the faith, but John, unlike Luke and Matthew, starts us off with a God that rejects physical constraints. John’s gospel rejects the confines of a specific place.
MET – And my understanding of church has always been beyond the confines of a physical place, as well. I can name at least five different churches, off the top of my head, that I attended regularly by the time I went to high school. If I believed that place was essential to church (or God in general) then I would have to believe that some, or even all, of those churches, were invalid, because God was in a place – and I did not stay put. I was a kid – I was in children’s ministries and youth groups. And for somebody that was constantly moving having a place to turn to – a church – that was important. And I found my faith there. In each church. Because God found me there. Because God, like me, is not limited by place. He is placeless. He wandered in the desert, he walked the roads from Jerusalem to Nazareth, he and his friends moved from town to town telling their story – my faith is not a story of people who settled down. I am leery of people who expect God to do that, now.
CRT – I want to talk about one of the first sermons I ever preached. It was right here at Trinity, and it was on the Transfiguration of Jesus. You know, easy stuff, right? One of the things that always struck me about that story is that it speaks to me about the places we find God. In both accounts of the Transfiguration, Jesus leads three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, up a high mountain where he is transfigured in radiant glory. During this, he is seen to be talking with both Moses and Eli’jah.
CRT – Now, Mountains are often sacred places in the Bible and in other religious traditions. Think of Moses on Mt. Sinai, the Greek Pantheon of Gods living on Mt. Olympus, even the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Mountains, and other high places, were where people on Earth could get as close to God or the gods as possible. It was where the physical and metaphysical realms almost touched. So if Jesus was going to be transformed in all his Glory and if he was going to commune with the great prophets of the past, then a tall mountain is of course the place where that was going to happen.
CRT – And Peter, recognizing that this place seems to be especially sacred, offers to set up tents or booths for Jesus, Moses, and Eli’jah so they can all stay up on the sacred mountain together. But Jesus doesn’t let them put down roots in that place, because God is coming down from the mountain to the people. Jesus makes the world a holy place by being in it. That’s what we are called to do as well. We aren’t called to build the biggest, prettiest, church building to contain God. We are called to bring God with us into the world.
CRT – Because that is what Christ did. Jesus didn’t set up shop and expect those that needed to feel his touch and hear his words to come to him. He went to them. He didn’t perform his miracles in royal places or in the synagogue. He performed them in the streets where the people who most needed those miracles were. He got his hands dirty, sometimes literally, to touch and to heal people who in many cases wouldn’t be welcome in those clean, holy places.
CRT – There’s a poem by Jay Hulme that comes to mind. If you heard our episode on Literature, I talked about him. He is a trans poet who grew up an atheist but was fascinated with church architecture. During his visits to cathedrals and churches in England, he came to believe and was baptized just before the Covid pandemic lockdowns began. But he, too, doesn’t only look for Christ in those buildings. The poem is called “Abide with us, Lord Jesus”
in the bleak earth, mould-dirt, in the tent and the tenement and the cold corner we found for ourselves. Dwell amongst us in the ashes, in the filth and the fright and the freezing fear of eviction that comes with each knock at the door. Make your home in the dust-dark doorways of dilapidated factories and dissipated department stores. Our endless prayer: Come, Lord.CRT – Hulme doesn’t go to a church and look for Jesus there. He calls out for Jesus to come to him in the least of holy places, even sofar as to call him to living homeless on the streets.
CRT – A lot of time and energy is spent discussing and debating the differences between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. I’m not going to get into most of that, but I am often stuck by this: the God of the old testament and the God of the new testament have different relations to place. In the Old Testament, a great deal of time and energy is spent on specific holy spaces. The temple, the tabernacle. And a lot of time and energy is spent setting forth rules on who is allowed to enter those places and directly encounter God. In the New Testament, however, God leaves those holy places and dwells among the rest of us. So the question is, does Jesus go to unholy, unclean places to let the unholy and unclean meet him, or does it mean that everywhere and everyone is holy.
MET – Ok, so Listen, Carl and I are not here to tell you that you shouldn’t love your home church. And we don’t want you to think that you shouldn’t think fondly of the place you were baptized or the church you grew up in or sang in the choir at for years. But we are here to warn you that if you start looking for God in a specific spot as opposed to the people there, you will be lonely.
MET – In the Gospels, at the crucifixion, the veil at the temple is torn in two. Symbolically, that’s supposed to mean (I guess) that there is not a separation between God’s priests and his people anymore. The clean and the unclean. But it is also a comment on the sacrosanct nature of the place itself. God has torn the veil in two because God is not confined to a holy spot. God is not in the Holy of Holies anymore. He is in the world. He is the people we see in our lives every day. If we think of God as a place then we are limiting him. And if you are limiting God, then you don’t really believe in a God that has the power to redeem and save because God is small enough to be put into your own private box.
MET – So, sure – think fondly of the places where you have felt God. But don’t fall prey to the illusion that he is somehow stuck there. Your church is the convenient place for you to find God, not the place where God is relegated to.
MET – Places certainly can be holy. But many places can be holy. A place is holy because God is there, and God is where people are doing his work. So classrooms can be holy. Homeless shelters can be holy. Hospitals can be holy. And these places should be no less revered for their connection to God than the church, because somebody may find him there. We don’t need an altar and a cross to find and worship God. God is where we are. If we don’t notice, that’s our problem.
MET – Thank you for listening to The Priest and The Prof. Find us at our website, https://priestandprof.org. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us at podcast@priestandprof.org. Make sure to subscribe, and if you feel led, please leave a donation at https://priestandprof.org/donate/. That will help cover the costs of this podcast and support the ministries of Trinity Episcopal Church. Thank you, and we hope you have enjoyed our time together today.
DDM – Music by Audionautix.com.
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