Craig Bartholomew, a philosophy professor at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, has been at work on a curious topic. “When people ask what I’m working on, and I say, ‘place,’ I get a blank stare,” Bartholomew says. But examples help. “The home is a place, the city is a place, the university is a place, the mall is a place, and the placial dynamic of all these places must be attended to for people to flourish.”
To exist at all, we must be somewhere. And as embodied creatures, we are implaced in specific contexts. Yet in contemporary culture, this aspect of human existence is threatened by what Bartholomew calls a “crisis of place” created by several elements of our technological society. To fully flourish as human beings””and to flourish as entire communities””Bartholomew argues, we need to recover the lost art of placemaking.
This is a good and timely article for me. I think that when you get to the “empty nest” phase of your life, you re-evaluate. After all, you are left with a void of time, your “place” may not make sense anymore, and your priorities change. Parenting and meeting the needs of the kids aren’t the paramount roles anymore. The house might be too big and too much of a strain to maintain and the “kid-friendly” environment and structures aren’t relevant.
another interesting, challenging and helpful piece on ‘place’ (or the lack of it) is Brian Walsh and Steven Bouma-Prediger’s ‘Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement’
“Placial dynamic”? “Implaced”? Two neologisms in one CT article must be some kind of record!
Seriously, though, I see a strong connection with Tim Keller’s reading of Jeremiah: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’” (29:7)