Everydayness

Walker Percy, writing in The Moviegoer tells the story of Binx Bolling and his quest for a life of meaning.  Percy is a brilliant southern writer who tells a compelling story that drags the reader into every word and every page.. 


Bolling tries to escape the humdrum of life by going to the movies which provide him with "treasurable moments" which are absent from his every day life. While at the movies he is able to withdraw from life and attach to the story on the big screen.

Movies have that effect.


William Willimon, Bishop of the United Methodist Church in Northern Alabama, describes his experience with the "moving picture show" in an article in Christian Century on October 22, 1986.


"Though I could not have known it at the time, a momentous event in my faith journey occurred on a Sunday evening in 1963 in Greenville, South Carolina, when, in defiance of the state's archaic Blue Laws, the Fox Theatre opened on Sunday evening. Seven of us--regular attenders at the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Buncombe Street Church--made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox.


Only lately have I come to see how that evening symbolizes a watershed in the history of Christianity in the United States. On that night, Greenville, South Carolina--the last pocket of resistance to secularity in the Western world--gave in and served notice that it would not longer be a prop for the church. If Christians were going to be made in Greenville, the church must do it alone. There would be no more free passes for the church, no more free rides. The Fox Theatre went head-to-head with the church to see who would provide the ultimate values for the young. That night in 1963, the Fox Theatre would the opening skirmish.


In taking me to church, my parents were affirming everything that was American. Church was, in a sense, the only show in town. Everybody was doing it. Church, home and state formed a vast consortium working together to instill Christian values. People grew up Christian, simply by growing up American. All that ended the night that the Fox Theatre opened on Sunday."


Back to Binx Bolling....


Toward the end of the novel, he laments that every morning he awakes in the "grip of everydayness...and everydayness is the enemy."


I am wondering if the church has anything to say today that breaks the cycle of "everydayness?" I wonder if the church has lost her voice to speak into the lives of people or has surrendered it to the movies, music, entertainment and the like?


My goal in my journey today is to move beyond the "everdayness" of life to "treasurable moments."