In my previous post, I discussed the centrality of the economic sphere to the suburban ethos. One question that I raised to which I provided only a partial answer was this: who is telling the stories that shape the imaginations of those in suburban contexts?

This question is critical to addressing the idea of the pursuit of happiness as the focus of the suburban lifestyle. As I've mentioned before, happiness in this context is typically defined in terms of comfort, security, and personal fulfillment. And who is it that does the defining? I'd argue that it's primarily the voice of marketing and consumption. The stories that are told that give shape to the suburban ethos are, interestingly enough, primarily stories about lack. The irony is biting - the affluent are being told that they need more stuff to find fulfillment, and the story is being accepted and owned.

I've been listening to a lecture by Walter Brueggemann called The Narrative of the Gospel Vis-a-vis the Narrative of Our Consumer Society. (Thanks Chris! ;) One of the things that Brueggemann compares in the lecture is the Exodus story and the modern rat race. He makes the point - in typical Brueggemann fashion - that the Israelites were two verses out of Egypt before they wanted to go back. They leave in Exodus 15; by 16:2 they're already complaining. Although they left Egypt, they brought it along with them. The ideology of the empire is harder to defeat than its military, it seems.

The narrative response, then, to the pursuit of happiness is the Exodus story. We need to recognize that the stories that legitimate happiness as comfort and security are being told by those with a vested interest in our ever-increasing consumption and production. We need to recognize that our stories have been hijacked by this agenda, and that we haven't truly left Egypt behind. We have much in common with the people of Israel, it seems.

I'd like to suggest two practices that can help us to recognize the stories of our culture for what they are. One is personal, the other communal. First, on a personal level, I suggest that regular practice of silence and solitude constitutes a resistance against the omnipresent stories of advertising and marketing. Silence and solitude disrupts the continual refrain of advertising that comes to us through multiple channels - print, television, radio, internet, and the omnipresence of corporate logos. While it is surprisingly difficult to isolate oneself fully from these voices, even little resistances such as turning off the car radio and driving in silence can create a space in which the voice of marketing is not welcome - and, as a result, a space in which the voice of God can be heard.

The second practice is a communal one, and in some sense is perhaps the most basic of Christian practices in which we engage as a community. I think that the regular telling of the Story can serve to reorient ourselves away from the stories of the market. We tell the Story in our worship, in our preaching, and in our shared practices such as baptism and eucharist. But I think that, often, we assume that the meanings behind the practices are known, and we fail to give attention to the larger themes of scripture in our worship and speech. We don't tell the story as Story, but as disconnected bits and pieces of disembodied truth statements that have no coherence and no greater reference. Instead, we must enter into the Story, tell it as Story, and find our place in the Story so that we can tell it as our own.

Technorati Tags: contextual theology, suburbs, Exodus