Over the last couple of weeks I have explored incarnation in the neighbourhood and incarnation online. Whilst my last post was about working online, my primary focus is spirituality and community development in the local economy. Is there room for prayer in the marketplace?
Let me be clear about what I am not writing about. For many years, a man used to walk up and down Fargate, the main shopping street in Sheffield City Centre, wearing a sandwich board proclaiming that the Kingdom of God was nigh and so we were all doomed. He has many successors and to this day there are often preachers and music groups, reminding us of our sinfulness.
They are one of the few ways the original spirit of the marketplace is still expressed in our modern so-called secular world. Whilst their practice may be close to my vision of the radical agora where all human interactions focus, it is not what I mean by prayer in the marketplace. It is not that they offer an alternative to shopping so much as they contribute to the mix of activities that should be present in any city centre.
So too are the churches, including Cathedrals that offer a place for prayer, a space to take time out and sit quietly. Perhaps they support prayer in the marketplace but what they offer is not exactly what I mean.
Prayer in the Marketplace
So, what do I mean by prayer in the marketplace? What is prayer? There are many definitions and my Christian friends are likely to disagree with me. Prayer is simply being present. It is being aware of what is happening around you. It is in essence being incarnate, present and in the flesh.
The marketplace is the community in which businesses operate. Our neo-liberal economy has worked tirelessly over many years to drain common spaces of community. Spending no longer benefits the immediate neighbourhood, as multi-nationals extract money from circulation.
So, prayer is being present in this travesty of a marketplace and being aware not only of the destruction wreaked on our communities by unaccountable corporations but also of the green shoots of community fighting back.
The marketplace is, for communities, their heart. Maybe the heart is torn from many neighbourhoods but what else can replace the marketplace?
Sheffield as an Example
Look at Sheffield. The post-war rebuilding resulted by the 1960s in Sheffield City Centre being the best in the UK outside of London. Then they built Meadowhall, an out-of-town shopping centre, and since then the city centre has struggled to fight back. The corporations moved out of the centre and into Meadowhall. Many towns within about an hour’s drive of Meadowhall suffered a similar decline.
Not only are the corporations unreliable but they create what are sometimes called clone towns. Go anywhere and you find the same shops. Places lose their distinctiveness and become vulnerable to rapid decline once the corporations decide the town can no longer support their presence.
Being present, allows us to see all this and where there are green shoots, initiatives that need support. More than that it is those who are present who see new potential and can call on the authorities to change policies.
For example, if business rates are high, expecting the return of the corporations, perhaps local authorities can make premises available to local businesses on more affordable terms.
When we walk through our streets, we must be aware of the human need around us. Some of this need is obvious but how many people are there because they are seeking community, in the only place they know to look?
When you’re alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go, downtown
When you’ve got worries all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help I know, downtown
