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Are You from Somewhere or from Anywhere?
A few years ago, a British author called David Goodhart wrote a book in which he claimed that we can divide the world into two groups; those who are from ‘somewhere’ and those who are from ‘anywhere’. It is an intriguing idea. You might think that everyone is from ‘somewhere’ and of course that’s true! However, as Goodhart uses the term, the people from ‘somewhere’ are those whose lives are very much grounded in a particular place.
A ‘somewhere’ person belongs to a particular village, or town, or even a particular street. Many ‘somewhere’ people will live predominantly in smaller, rural areas. A ‘somewhere’ person will usually grow up and attend local schools and join local clubs and he or she will find work locally and, very often settle down in the same place.
If you are a ‘somewhere’ person then your identity is ascribed, which is another way of saying that you ‘fit in’ in a certain place and you help to make that place what it is, just as that place helps to shape your identity.
If you are an ‘anywhere’ person you may have started out ‘somewhere’, but perhaps you went away to college, or you travelled away for work and your identity is no longer ascribed; now you can live ‘anywhere’ and it doesn’t make much of a difference to you or to your sense of self. Or, you may have grown up in a large suburb or a city community with a large, transient population, in which case you may never have put down roots ‘somewhere’. You can feel at home ‘anywhere’ because you don’t feel like you come from ‘somewhere’ in particular. It is a rather simple but intriguing idea! Are you a ‘somewhere’ person or an ‘anywhere’ person?
The Franciscan way of life began ‘somewhere’. ‘Somewhere’ for Franciscans is a small medieval town in central Italy called Assisi. It remains ‘home’ for every Franciscan and it continues to have a remarkable ‘pull’ on all those who have been fascinated by the story of the Poverello, Saint Francis, and his Gospel way of life. After eight centuries the town of Assisi continues to characterize in some way the spirit and the values of Saint Francis.
At the same time, Franciscans are from ‘anywhere’ because, from the first, Franciscans were called to express a life of fraternity-in-motion. Saint Francis and the early friars were itinerant preachers and workers. They made their home in many places, but their call was to move out with the Gospel message towards those people and to those places that were waiting to hear the Gospel message in a new, authentic way.
If you are interested in the Franciscan life today you need to be an ‘anywhere’ person, in as much as you need to be willing to leave the comfort and familiarity of home, so as to enter the fraternity of friars minor, a global brotherhood. On joining the friars, you will move out to new and different places, since this is part of the Franciscan life. But this moving out isn’t a rootless, lonely, drifting through the world.
Wherever you are asked to go as a friar, that place is the ‘somewhere’ God is asking you to live the Gospel in. Every friar is sent ‘somewhere’ to be a witness of Jesus Christ, to live in poverty and simplicity; to live in fraternity and in the service of peace.
