Last November I did my first reading in Queer Theory. Before any of you get nervous or excited, this entry will not be dealing with my views on homosexuality. While a very worthwhile discussion, it is not one I am wading into at the moment. Rather, this entry is about our concepts of time and place.
In a book entitled A Queer Time and Place, Judith Halberstam has an article on “Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies.” In the article she argues that our culture has constructed our concepts of time and place around a set of “paradigmatic markers of life experience” within the “temporal frames of bourgeois reproduction and family, longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance.” Her writing in particular focuses on two aspects of the queer subculture: AIDS and paradigmatic life markers.
As Halberstam writes, the AIDS epidemic has created a subculture with a different understanding of life and death. Within the community there is a very real sense that each day is a gift, each day must be lived to the fullest, and that each day might be our last. This sense of the present reality of death pervades and reorients the lives of those who live close to it. It should not take an AIDS epidemic to orient our lives as if each day might be our last. We are to be a community where there is always oil for the lantern on hand, where we are always ready to enter into the wedding banquet (Matt. 25:1ff). Not only that, we are to live as if heaven is already present within us, among us, shaping our vision, defining how we see the world around us.
I had never before considered time and space as cultural constructs, yet as I read this article I recognized how in my own way I have been living in queer time and space. Halberstam gave words to my own experience of feeling out of step with so many around me, in particular my co-workers who are predominately married men, men who married young, with wives at home raising their children. I realized the tension in my own life of trying to live into the life markers of the culture around me while also trying to live the reality of my subtly alternative lifestyle.
Home and work space is differently defined for a single person living alone than they are a married person with a family. My home is my private space, my quiet space, a place of personal expression, a place of rest, and at times a place of isolation. My work is where people are, where I am a useful member of society, where I am defined in relationship to other people. For many married people with children, their definitions of space are the exact opposite. I don’t need to come into the office several hours early to get some time alone. I can go an entire weekend without seeing or talking to another human being.
I can no longer mark time and maturity in my life by when I get married or have a baby. I can’t measure my growth as I move into the phase of caring for a child who is solely dependent on me. I have had to adjust my understanding of life cycle, family, and maturity to deal with the reality of my own situation. I have had to find ways to grow up that don’t leave me isolated. I have had to find ways to publicly mark my adulthood whether through owning a home or buying a suit.
What would it look like to have time and space constructed around God rather than our culture? What would it look like if the church were truly seen as sacred space or if all space was considered sacred because of God’s presence? What if a week was marked by worship rather than work? A day by our time spent in prayer rather than at a job or in school? How might God ask us to reorient our understandings of time and space? Is that part of the liturgical tradition? Following a liturgical calendar that shapes the year around the great festivals of the church rather than around the academic year or national holidays?
It seems that queer theory and other post-structuralist readings that critique the cultural role in defining and shaping life provide tools to allow the Church to begin reconstructing a life that is truly counter-cultural. In considering how sub-cultures are formed we can begin to critique our own captivity to the hegemonic culture around us. We can also seek to be more intentional about constructing identities based on different assumptions, based on the values of the kingdom of God. Rather than competing with the world around us, perhaps a new understanding of time will allow us to be clearer about our own priorities and to challenge the cultural assumptions of production and success that consume us.
3 comments:
Reading your thoughts and integrative processes is fabulous. As one who has enjoyed the dialogical version of this entry, and had anxiety about losing the content of our conversations, its great to have a written record of such 'good things.' Go Jo Ann!
Again you have proved that there is so much more to you than even a mother can know. Thank you for sharing these amazing thoughts. I have always grown and learned from you. I can only hope that the reverse is true. Love, Mom
You said in the end "perhaps a new understanding of time will allow us to be clearer about our own priorities and to challenge the cultural assumptions of production and success that consume us."
In my classes we've been talking about changing focus from self to other, from other to feelings, from feeling to time or space, etc. This is a focus change but also has potential I think for more expansion. eg. Time is tied for some of us to identity, culture, and theories of God's will ... Lots to think about. Good stuff. -Heidi
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