“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” Luke 15:31-32
“Mature materiality, like that of the son in the parable, knows that a faithful life requires participation in, attentiveness to, and loyalty to a place. The son came to know this; upon his return he finds his rightful place defined by adequate food, festive welcome, and a gracious safe-making father. Embrace of such a life-giving place presents us with two generative questions about place.
First, where am I supposed to be? To ask this question is already to acknowledge that there is a “right place” to be that should not be confused with the bright lights of a “far country” of utopia (“no-place!”) that is anti-human. A vacation in utopia may be in order but, as the son discovered, it cannot become one’s “continuing city” (Hebrews 11:14; NRSV “homeland”).
For good reason it is high praise to say of someone, “He never forgot where he came from.” Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone comes from a particular place with its particular hope and particular resources and particular social protocols and particular foods. These particulars may be amended and critiqued, but they cannot be safely scuttled in a wholesale
way for the sake of rootless imagination.
Thus the “right place” to be is a place that is infused with particulars that impose costs, give gifts, and offer rootage. We are not meant to be and finally cannot be rootless, placeless occupants of “nowhere”; finally we must be obligated, contributing partners in a time and place.
The vow of “stability” taken by some monks is instructive. That vow means to spend one’s life invested “on location” without the illusion that elsewhere, any elsewhere, would be preferable. Thus a “place” is an actual human venue in which one puts down one’s buckets in durable ways. For many persons the liturgy of a particular religious community lends staying power to a place. This is true in Christian liturgy, and no less true in other traditions as well.
Second, we may ask about our right place, how is it that I should inhabit that particular place of home? Well, NOT as user, consumer, possessor, exploiter, or predator. These are models of occupation that are appropriate for a commoditized society in which those with “homeless minds” are unable to care about those with “homeless bodies.”
Mature materiality rejects and refuses all such convenient modes of habitation that are marked by indifference, apathy, fatigue, or selfishness. The intention of mature materiality is to identify and enact more appropriate forms of habitation.”
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), 70-71.
Some people reading this may find themselves out of place or not where they need to be. Generosity generally does not flow from our lives when we are out of place.
Others reading this may find themselves in the right place but not inhabiting it rightly. I would argue most people would find themselves in this category as we always have room for improvement.
Let me explain. We tend toward locating the right place, but occupying it as a “user, consumer, possessor, exploiter, or predator,” instead of one who practices mature materiality.
Such people move from “indifference, apathy, fatigue, or selfishness” to compassionate care, attention to impact of living on others, and living unselfishly.
Sit with the Lord today. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you home if you are not in the right place. And ask for guidance on inhabiting that place in a manner that will optimize your generosity with mature materiality.
And keep praying for me and the team of indigenous workers and GTP staff as we continue the design lab to build a contextualized curriculum to grow generous stewards and activate the Palmful of Coffee vision.
We are asking God to help us evangelize the Coffee Triangle through this effort and engage them to participate in Christian mission in the whole world.