Last Rites

I sat this evening in a large common space, joined by fifty or sixty others of various generations, all seated facing the same way. We sat in a building open to the community, but which had been constructed for a singular purpose. We discussed tighter budgets, the need to trim programs, and the possibility of merging with another nearby group of similar convictions, out of fiscal need. Members expressed the spectrum of possible opinions on whether to merge, or how far to do so. Anxiety of potential change and loss hung in the air.

I have been privy to many of these kinds of situations lately. Serving in the position I do within the Church, I witness congregations which have become smaller over the years and are now faced with tough choices driven by finances.

Tonight's conversation, however, took place in a school. It pertained to the merger of sports programs between two schools, and flirted with the possibility of a full merger between schools. With a few transpositions, the conversation could be a script for a congregational meeting in a small rural assembly of believers.

What struck me with the greatest weight was the central anxiety wrought by dwindling budgets and populations. Folks attach their identity, their sense of value, and the life of the community to the building-clad entity--be it a congregation or a school.

When asked about the prospect of the state fully merging this district with another, the superintendent said, "If we lose this school, this building, the town will die."

Really?

Another parent said that the kids needed this school because it was part of their identity. Being a student in this school, this town, defined them.

Really?

I have only a peripheral interest in this district's choices about merging. I'm a volunteer coach for one of the sports, and just an assistant coach at that. I don't live in the district, or in the town. But I have an intense interest in the things that make us--individuals, families, communities, congregations--come to define ourselves by building-clad institutions. As I have seen from Bethlehem Steel, the Nineveh schoolhouse, and countless empty cathedrals in Europe, building-clad institutions eventually run their course and crumble.

If the numbers just get too tight, what will happen to these folks who define themselves by their school? Will they go into communal depression, as a teenager might who cannot find her identity in life? Will they become angry and vengeful--and how does that manifest in a community? Will they seek to define themselves around some other building, like the firehouse or a community center?

Or will they find identity in something more fluid than brick and mortar, which can weather financial ups and downs, thrive in country and city, and last for a lifetime?

~emrys