Finding My Place in a Non-Place World

How much of my life am I living in non-places?

This term "non-places," created by French anthropologist Marc Auge nearly ten years ago, is new to me. Auge introduced the idea in his book on super modernity, describing them as transient spaces where we remain anonymous, spaces that don't hold enough significance to even be regarded as real "places." Writer Mark Sayers, in his recent book Strange Days: Life in the Spirit in a Time of Upheaval, latches onto the non-places idea, calling them spaces with no identity, no history, and no relationships. The term applies to actual physical locations, such as freeways, hotels, airports, and fast-food restaurants, as well as cyber spaces--everything from Amazon to hookup sites.

I'm realizing that I have to work harder and harder to choose places over non-places. As much as I desire to be known, that requires time, effort, and vulnerability, and usually it's just quicker and easier to do life in non-places that don't require so much of me.

I go to a megachurch, where I rarely see the same people from week to week, let alone sit by them or interact with them. No one knows when we're not there. We are anonymous, a family of six in a sea of faces, and my children have never known anything else.

We go to chain restaurants where the food is always the same but the staff is always different. A year ago we sat in one of these restaurants, six of us, mind you, in the dead center of the room, for at least a half hour with no acknowledgement from anyone--no greeting, no menu, no order taken, no eye contact. For a while it was an interesting social experiment (could we force someone to notice us, without saying a word?), but eventually we gave up and walked out.

I've taken to buying my groceries online. I love it and it's given me hours of my life back, but at what cost? As much as I hated walking its aisles week after week, I had history with Walmart. Addison pushed me through the store when my ankle was injured, making me laugh so hard I could barely see straight. It was the place where I made up stories and songs to entertain my little kids as we waited in a long line on a Friday afternoon. I made chit-chat with the same checkers, week after week. I used to bump into friends  and acquaintances and occasionally have meaningful conversation in the mayonnaise aisle. Now I add items to my cart on a computer screen. Much of my other shopping is done the same way, in non-places, so convenient, yet so impersonal. I'm not about to give these up, but they make me work harder to use that saved time well.

I work from home. I email and text my friends, my mom, my husband, my children. I spend hours in the car, often by myself, driving in circles alongside strangers doing the same thing. I have to be intentional to seek out real places with real people. It takes effort, but I'm always so thankful for how it pays off.

There are times, many times, when anonymity and efficiency are the best choice, but they can't be all there is. I want to choose places where I have history (like the place at my church where I've spent Wednesday nights at Awana for the past eleven years), relationships (going out on dates with my husband, spending one-on-one time with my kids, taking walks with friends), and identity (not the kind that can be stolen in an Equifax hack, but the kind that is grounded in the truth of who God made me to be). I want my kids to choose real places over non-places, to consider that as they look for colleges. I hope we will all do the hard work of being known, being real, and creating authentic places where we can welcome others in.