Orson Scott Card, one of my favorite SCi-Fi writers, occasionally publishes a rant on the site “Ornery American”. Todays rant was about our dependence on cars, and how American cities were redesigned when automobiles came about. Card paints a picture of an ideal neighborhood where auto use is rare, and it is very much like some of the small towns, or town centers, in our area. I agree with his tone about most suburban housing developments - half your commute could be just getting out of your own neighborhood, and with so many cars driving around, the streets aren’t safe for children to play in. He has a lot of good reasons for his suggestion, and I agree with them in theory…for other people.

But neither the neighborhood nor the small town have much to offer my family. (We don’t want to be in a “keep up with the Jones’ ” neighborhood!) We want lots of woods and nature and animals and streams and piles of leaves. We don’t want to be told we have to mow weekly, we can’t keep chickens, or we can’t keep our boat in our side yard. We want to play music loudly (sometimes), and other times listen to the water and crickets without hearing cars and humans.

IMO, the solution to becoming less dependent on cars isn’t to make everyone move back into small towns and then use mass transit to get to work. It will work for some, but not everyone. Plus, it would be slow to implement, and falls back on making government/business/city planners responsible for fixing the problem, and we can’t trust them to do it. Plus, we already have all this other infrastructure in place. We can’t expect millions of families to suddenly move to small towns. So, even if we get everyone on board, it would take a very long time to make a difference.

But we don’t have to wait a very long time to make a difference. We can be smarter about how we work/play/shop. We can USE the internet for all those WEB 1.0 purposes we were originally so excited about (like shopping). We can take back control of our lifestyle and our families and not be so influenced by media, marketing, and research. Let’s look at some things that would reduce auto usage:

1. VPN If people work from home, they don’t commute. Most large corporations already have the ability to offer this to their employees. The stumbling blocks are more mentality than anything. How can I be sure my employee is actually working? (Answer: Have clear goals, and have the employee meet them. If you aren’t already doing this, chances are even IN the office a big portion of her time is wasted anyway. Get reports from IT on VPN usage or whatever to prove you’re getting “8 hrs”.) What will suffer if we don’t have face time? (Schedule periodic “face time” at the office.) What about phone calls? (Have phones/VM forwarded to home/cell/VOIP.) Will it be an adjustment? Yes. Deal with it.

2. Order Online We can order just about everything off the internet and have it delivered. Because the UPS truck is coming through our neighborhood anyway, this is a lot more efficient than each of us running our little errands to pick up this or that. Most places allow you to schedule re-orders, so you won’t have to worry about forgetting until the last minute. (BTW - Whatever happened to grocery delivery?)

3. Cut Activites One activity, and it doesn’t have to be a sport, and it doesn’t have to be school sponsored. It also takes pressure off of kids who would rather be doing something else. Not every kid needs to be a jock, and activity doesn’t have to be organized and planned to be healthy. Go play outside!

4. Schedule Activities Better Activities should be scheduled right after, and near, school. Preferably, the child should be able to go directly from school to the activity. This cuts driving, as well as leaving evenings for family.

5. Meet Online While not ideal for everything, some things just don’t require you to be face-to-face. For instance, do you really need to sit down in a room with 5 other people you’ve met before to try to agree on a place and schedule to do something later? What happened to email? What about Chat? While you’re at it, send each other links, instead of printing 5 copies of the brochure you downloaded. As a bonus, you’ll have a record of what was said, and you can include people who might not have been able to attend otherwise.

5. Garden and Cook If you’re making food at home, you aren’t having to go out shopping for it. (Plus it is healthier and tastier.) If you aren’t commuting to work and being a taxi for all those after-school activities, you should have the time.

We all just need to be a little less influenced by what we see around us, and a little more thoughtful and organized about how we choose to run our lives. Card says “if we make it a noble national cause to change our living patterns so we can drive less than half as much as we do now, we could absolutely transform our cities and towns — and our lives — in a decade. ” It will take a little work to change, but it will be so worth it, and we just might get our families back, too.

Quick fond memory: In college, with my now-husband, dressing up to go see this at the college theatre. Yes, dressing up as in dressing goth. (I guess nowadays nobody would look twice.)

I think that’s a very significant thought. Yes, many cultures have a tradition you follow to enter a holy place: removing shoes, washing hands, wearing head coverings, etc. If I recall correctly (this is off the top of my head), the ancient Jewish traditions held that only certain people could come into the courtyard of the holy place, certain others into the worship area, priests into a curtained area, but only God was in the “Holy of Holies” (center). Women, children, and the sick were not allowed beyond the courtyard. Some would see this as prejudicial, and I would agree. But if only certain people are allowed to do a thing, it certainly makes it more desirable to others. (two words: “drinking age”). I can imagine that those who were allowed in where aware how special a privilege this was, and that those who weren’t allowed in begged them “tell us what they said, Daddy”. (How many people who do not attend church today ask what the sermon was about?) Removing your shoes and washing before entering was required, and this too would have added to the mystique - the place was so special, you didn’t want to get it dirty.

When I was growing up, you washed up, did your hair nice, and wore your best clothes to go to church. It may seem like the opposite of taking off your shoes, but it really wasn’t. It was our way of showing respect for the church. But I can see that the symbolism is diluted. Making sure you are “cleaned up” before attending church isn’t the same as the “ablutions” the Jews and early Christians practiced. When they “washed before church”, it was a metaphorical way of cleaning not only their skin, but their hearts and minds, preparing them for God to enter. At some point, we moved to a “come as you are” church attendance. It was argued that we didn’t want to alienate anyone who didn’t have nice/clean clothes - we wanted to accept everyone, just like Jesus. I agree with that premise whole-heartedly, but I am seeing where this again is watering down the spiritualism of entering the church.

Nowadays, all we have to do is “show up”, and even that is being made easier and easier. We don’t have to travel a long distance, wear special clothes, become members, get invited, be clean, or do any special “observances” to get in. There are now church services on almost any day of the week, and there are churches in strip malls, and in people’s homes. There are even churches on TV or the internet that you can attend any time you want, and you can even pause the service if you are interrupted! And our church “sanctuary” is just as often used as an auditorium or cafeteria - (I’ve even know of churches that double as gymnasiums) - in an effort to save costs, and sometimes with the argument that getting people from the community comfortable entering the building is a first step to bringing them to Christ.

This is all great for “spreading the Word”. But, it also makes it very easy to “catch the sermon” or “attend worship”, but not quite “enter the Holy Place”. And if you aren’t having an encounter with God, you’re missing the point. Church is not just a school for Bible theory, or an event for “fellowship with other believers”. Yes, that’s a very good part of the package, but it’s also missing the most important part of the package: God. I believe that even in an evangelical church with a very active service, it is possible to not be aware of how special the experience is. Obviously, if you ask people to wash their feet, or require black-tie attire, cover their heads, or something along those lines, you alienate a lot of people. (Although I will note that this is still working for Amish, Mennonites, and Jews, among others.) So, how can we bring that back, without sacrificing the openness? What can we have people do at the beginning of a service (and I believe it needs to be a physical act), that most reasonable people will be willing and able to do, that will have enough symbolism to trigger that “this is something special” alert in their brains?

What things have made you realize you were entering some place special? (It doesn’t have to be a “this is church” feeling; anything that made you realize the place you were entering was different from every other building.)