Beating the bounds
Returning to the places God has called us to
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A paradox of the covid-19 pandemic is that it is simultaneously a global and a local event. A pandemic is, almost by definition, global. But early on in the pandemic I realized that the news I valued the most was the news most directly related to my local place: I wanted to know what was open and closed here, what the mask rules were, and so on. My interest in what was happening elsewhere was general and nowhere near as intense.
The pandemic also forced me to consider my local place more closely. All of a sudden, I was spending a lot more time at home. The bike path nearby became my lifeline. I watched, in the early months of the pandemic, as it turned from winter to spring to summer along that path. I learned about little corners of my neighbourhood I had never before explored even though I had often walked right past them.
The church is, at its core, a local organization. The word “parish” refers to a geographic unit for which a vicar is responsible. In my Anglican tradition, the whole structure of the church is built on these place-based relations—not only parishes, but also deaneries, archdeaconeries, dioceses, provinces. A church in one place won’t be the same as a church in another place precisely and rightly because the places are different.
Yet so much of the pressure in our world pushes us away from places. Humans are more mobile than in the past, whether for short trips or to entirely relocate. Our social-media-fuelled existence—to which the church is by no means immune—means that we build connections and relationships with less and less regard for particular places. There are many good things about this—I appreciate the network of friends (and “friends”) I have online—but it can mean that I spend more time looking at a screen and less time looking at the place where I actually am.
Many people are now returning to (or preparing to return to) church buildings they haven’t been in for many months. I think this re-entry can be a time of deliberate re-connection not only with the building but also with the place where that church is. Perhaps we can ask ourselves questions like these:
What has changed about this place since the last time we were here?
We might see it obviously in the building. But we can see it in the place as well—businesses that are now closed, new ones opening, new homes built, and so on.
Who and what else has become connected with this place during the pandemic?
I think of churches that have hosted drop-in centres for the homeless during the pandemic, or those that have found themselves hosting colonies of groundhogs or raccoons or geese.
Who has been in this place before us? How are we called to be in relationship with them?
Not a pandemic-specific question, per se, but an important one to ask nonetheless and that may open newer and deeper forms of relationship.
There’s an ancient Christian practice called “beating the bounds” in which members of a parish walk around its boundaries and pray for the parish. That is, they remind themselves of the place in which they live and minister and pray for its health and welfare.
It’s a practice that can be readily adapted to a post-pandemic world. It helps us get to re-know the place where we worship and where God calls us to serve.