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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry (00:02.793)
Hello and welcome to Chasing Leviathan. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Eric Jacobson, the senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington. We're talking about his book, Three Pieces of Glass, Why We Feel Lonely in a World Mediated by Screens. Dr. Jacobson, wonderful to have you on today.
Eric (00:21.806)
Thank you for having me.
PJ Wehry (00:23.967)
So Dr. Jacobson, you already mentioned a little earlier when we were talking about some of the interesting circumstances surrounding the launch of this, but what led you to write this book? Why this book?
Eric (00:37.71)
Yeah, great question. So I've been, this is my third book and very similar themes about human-scaled community and walkability and those kinds of things. And I guess there's two kinds of answers that I'd give to that question. Why I felt it was necessary to do a third book. Partially was, I don't know if you want to call it marketing or whatnot, but when your main thing is kind of like, we should walk.
more and drive less. Some people just kind of close their eyes that feels kind of archaic or whatnot and they don't, you know, they just feel like, that's not, he's not speaking to me. But I was noticing that loneliness was getting a lot more attention, that people were really concerned about loneliness, rightfully so, and really starting to see it not so much even just as a psychological problem, but a public health issue, that, know, loneliness and mortality was
was being linked and being compared to like smoking two packs a day kinds of things. I thought, okay, if I can link my interest to loneliness, that might get some people's attention who don't think they're interested in this conversation. The second piece was obviously, you know, and we can get into what the three pieces of glass are, but just spoiler alert, two of them, one's the cell phone and the other one is the automobile that has a piece of glass as windshield.
that one of the things I was noticing was I think a number of people were starting to see the problems with how the cell phone was changing our relationships a little bit. an interesting generation to watch was the boomer generation was a little bit more aware of that than the young and then they were noticing like, these
You know, these young people, they go to Hawaii and they just stare at their screens instead of looking at the sunset and they are not really talking to each other. And they were right about that. And I, you know, was, was, was commending them for that. But I also, wanted to help them realize that, they really love their automobiles and they love driving around and good parking lots and all that kind of stuff. And I wanted to kind of help them see that this cell phone thing is just.
Eric (02:52.02)
one step in a thing we've been doing since the 1950s in terms of isolating ourselves from one another and said to help them see some areas where they could be growing and not just sort of condemning the young people for their cell phone use. So a little bit trying to widen the population of folks who could maybe learn something.
PJ Wehry (03:09.566)
I remember seeing a conversation online and my initial thought, it was the older generation looking at the younger generation watching other people play video games. And they're like, how can you do that? And I was like, that is kind of weird. Why not just, you know, and immediately the response to the younger generation is like, you watch other people play sports. What's the difference? And it's funny how you're like, oh, it's, it's the very, very similar activity. There's
Eric (03:20.81)
Yeah.
Eric (03:31.686)
Yeah
Eric (03:36.875)
Absolutely, yeah.
PJ Wehry (03:37.404)
You could, mean, any difference is really pedantic.
Eric (03:40.502)
Yeah, yeah, I think the idea is, we all have, we all have blind spots, but we just need someone outside of our, you know, most immediate context sometimes to point out our blind spots.
PJ Wehry (03:54.216)
So there's a couple different threads I can pull on there.
And so maybe a good place to start is you talk about placeless versus place making, because we have, I think most people immediately, and we can get more into the problems that come with these three pieces of glass. actually, I think if there's one that people don't understand, and maybe because it's so far back, it is the automobile. Let's start with the problems that you see with the automobile. What does...
Eric (04:22.893)
Yeah
PJ Wehry (04:27.422)
building for cars and constantly, habitually driving cars, what kind of problems do those create? Does that create?
Eric (04:34.67)
Yeah. the kind of problem that I'm exploring, called sort of things that malform our humanity, things that kind of bring out the worst in us as opposed to bringing out the best in us. car automobile driving is one such example. So something about the context of driving in a car causes you to see the other people that you're sharing public space with not as fellow humans, but rather as competitors.
you know, for lane space, parking space, all those kinds of things. And that in conjunction with the fact that you really can't hear them very well. I mean, I guess in Florida, well, in Florida, you drive with your windows up with aircon, but you don't have the kind of feedback loop of, know, if I bump into someone on the sidewalk and I've, you know, hurt them more than I thought or whatever surprised them, I'll immediately sort of apologize or say I'm sorry, you know, because I can see that that human thing happened and it didn't go well.
PJ Wehry (05:06.078)
You
Eric (05:33.262)
Whereas we don't see that in the car. And so somehow that frees us up to dehumanize the other and sort of say things we would never say to another person walking along the sidewalk. They can't hear it, of course, but we're just saying, you jerk or whatever. And yeah.
PJ Wehry (05:49.215)
Can I... The only consistent signal that you can give in a car is the horn, which is never apologetic, right?
Eric (05:56.29)
born, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So, so there's just it just it just causes us to, to not engage with our fellow humans in a way that's gracious and community building. And so that, I think we, you know, and I drive a car. I mean, I tried to not do it, you know, when when that option is possible.
But we drive our cars a lot. And not only do we drive our cars, but the thing that you mentioned before, since about 1950s, we started building our communities around the expectation of driving, which meant that we would spend a lot more time driving. And for most people in America today, not driving a car is not even a viable option. You can't get to work, you can't get to the store, can't... And consequently, the stores are built in such a way that even if you did live...
across the street from the store, you wouldn't really probably want to walk there because there'd be all kinds of strange barriers to getting their berms and things and you know, whatever. it's kind of this, you know, this on the one hand, people say, well, people need to make their choices and they're choosing to drive cars. And that's, you know, you know, but that's not exactly the case. There's a number of factors that are sort of working together to make that in some ways the only choice someone can make. And it's not, yeah, I think it's kind of hurt.
our humanity.
PJ Wehry (07:24.874)
And when you talked about building four cars, I was struck by the similarities. Again, right now we're focused on the cell phone, but your point is a lot of times this is just following up on steps we've taken with the automobile in the same way that in social media, we decry the dangers of echo chambers. We see the same thing. as soon as you said it, I was like, I see that all the time. I had just never spoken it.
Eric (07:38.797)
Yep.
PJ Wehry (07:54.749)
the way that we create little pockets that are stranger resistant because we design for cars. And that to me seems very similar to our problem with the echo chambers is that we discourage strangers from our neighborhoods. Do you mind explaining a little bit more about that? Cause I know that I kind of flubbed that a little bit, but.
Eric (07:59.81)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Eric (08:12.012)
Yeah, yeah, so I think one of the insights that I think I came to in writing this book is this notion of strangers is interesting how we use that word because we all know that strangers are potentially dangerous or upsetting or something like that.
And we are somewhat complicit in some of the ideas where strangers are kind of, like you said, kept at the outside or banished from our immediate attention. And the problem with that way of thinking is we forget the fact that we're all strangers somewhere. It's not just some category of people called strangers that we want to sort of put isolate over there, but we're all strangers somewhere. the only, strangers, it's not a fixed category. mean, someone who moves into my neighborhood is a stranger for a while, but hopefully.
PJ Wehry (08:54.578)
Yeah.
Eric (09:05.358)
You know, I go knock on their door and I introduce myself to them and we start to get to know each other or, and then we become acquaintances, you know, and that's a little bit different. And so, one of the things that can happen is if we're too concerned about strangers and too worried about strangers, we can build contexts where we don't ever have a possibility of moving from stranger to acquaintance to maybe even friend. And so that sort of exacerbates the problem. You know, there's a, one of my heroes is Jane Jacobs. In fact, you can see her little.
I have a little picture of her in my office there. That's Jane Jacobs there. But she talks about the safety of urban neighborhoods being a factor of eyes on the street. That when there's lots of people around that can, you that you have some kind of connection with, maybe the store owners or people who, you know, lean out of their windows or sit on their steps in front of their apartment.
PJ Wehry (09:41.224)
Yes.
Eric (10:03.534)
You tend to be safer from strangers in that environment, but there's a danger in some suburban environments in the fact that people don't know each other at all. And so you can, you're more vulnerable there. And so just, yeah, just a lot of, I think we need to rethink strangers and be open to the possibility of, you know, getting to know people in our neighborhoods.
PJ Wehry (10:29.244)
Yeah, and as you talk about that, one of the really helpful, again, it's something that I think we all feel, and I love this, is that you just kept giving language. I don't want to spend too much time digging in your book right now. realizing, I remember that there's intimate relationships and there's civic, and I don't remember the ones in between, but it's useful to have that terminology of...
Eric (10:51.19)
Right, right.
PJ Wehry (10:56.946)
Yeah, in some ways this is like everyone's either a friend or a stranger. We don't have acquaintances anymore. And what is the value of an acquaintance? Do you mind speaking a little bit? So we talked about the danger of the stranger, but what are the positives of these relationships where, like you were talking about the cash at the cash register, the person checking you out at the cash register knew, like was like, how's college? And you're like, who are you?
Eric (11:01.1)
Right. Right. Yeah.
Eric (11:18.862)
Right.
Eric (11:25.324)
Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that that that sort of civic level of I call it friendship where it's not an intimate friendship. These are people who's probably not been in your home, not had a meal with you, but you see them at the grocery store. They're checking out your groceries and whatnot. I think those can be really valuable in a sense of one of the big things I'm advocating for the book is for us to experience belonging. Right.
Real sense of belonging and that can happen at multiple levels, you know We belong in our families and with our friend group and we might belong to a church You might there's different things we can belong to but what I'm really advocating for especially sense of belonging in our neighborhood and I do my definition of loneliness is a little broader than some some would just talk about loneliness is being a
PJ Wehry (11:52.03)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (12:19.894)
a gap between your expectation of relational intimacy and your experience of relational intimacy. And I think that is a big part of it. We need to have people who know us and have intimate relationships with, but I also think there's kind of a loneliness that can go with place. I think we need a sense of belonging to where we live and maybe, depending on the context where we work, to our neighborhood. And that helps us feel.
a sense of belonging there. So in my neighborhood, I happen to be in an environment where my home is less than a mile from where I work and I get there by walking or biking. often, when I walk, if I pop into the stores, I'll see, people know my name and that just feels really good to be known. And in fact, I was walking to work yesterday and I walked
through the, by the front door of the grocery store. And I saw a checker who I know pretty well there and she caught my eye and waved at me and I waved at her and the Seahawks had just won the big game yesterday. And so I popped in and said, Hey, Kim, any great game yesterday? And we kind of shared this moment of like civic pride that our team had, you know, that game. And that can be, you know, that's just one point of connection, but it feels really good. I can think of another occasion where,
PJ Wehry (13:37.182)
you
Eric (13:47.47)
I don't know if this would pass your legal folks or whatnot as advice, but I was also in that same store a couple of years ago and there was a woman ahead of me in line and she had, just as we sometimes do, she bought things that were heavier than she was expecting. She had a bag of flour and she had some water bottles and whatnot and she was an elderly woman. She lived maybe two blocks.
PJ Wehry (13:55.856)
Yeah
Eric (14:15.838)
from the three blocks from the store. And she was realizing that she was paying like, I don't think I can actually carry these things. And I was behind her and I happened to have a car that day. And I said, this might sound really strange, but I would be happy to drive you. And she looked at me like trying to assess stranger danger, all this kind of stuff. And Kimi, this checker who I know really well said, honey, that's Eric. He's the pastor of the church right there. He comes here every day.
PJ Wehry (14:38.333)
Yes.
Eric (14:45.166)
He's not a strange, you don't have to be worried about him. And so she got in my car and I drove her to help her get her groceries into her house. that, know, I forget what question you asked, but I was just thinking about some of those, some of those like layers of being known that those, you know, and Kimmy, the checkers never been in my house. You know, we were not intimate friends, we're civic friends, but that has given me a lot of a sense of belonging in my neighborhood.
PJ Wehry (14:56.336)
No, no, that's, that's perfect.
Eric (15:14.264)
that's helped build other connections, I guess.
PJ Wehry (15:18.646)
Yeah, I think that's a great answer. speaking of malformed habits, I'm so used to a certain way of introducing. So I am a devout Christian, and so as I'm reading this, this is helpful. And when you talk about being a good neighbor,
PJ Wehry (15:38.831)
I think of like, of course, if someone's dying on the side of the road, they're going to take your assistance, right? But hopefully, and only in these kinds of contexts where you have the ability to make people feel safe to accept help, will you be able to be a good neighbor. And that's kind of that missing web. And I really appreciate you saying that because it's important to be able to share those good moments.
Eric (15:43.352)
Yeah. Right.
Eric (15:54.22)
Right. Right.
PJ Wehry (16:07.09)
But if the other person, if you have no, it makes a difference that you are known in several different ways.
Eric (16:13.964)
Right. And I think I probably should have included the word social capital and answering. So social capital is a really important word. Robert Putnam, I believe, is the source of that word. But this idea that the quality of our relationships, and he's really measuring the kind of things I'm talking about, the checker, the civic relationships, not our close friends only, but the quality of relationships that a place has actually has economic value.
PJ Wehry (16:19.048)
Yeah.
Eric (16:43.238)
And, know, that's again, why people sometimes people don't want to care about anything unless that's economic value. So that's his way of getting your attention, but as economic value, and he gives examples of close knit communities require less police, they require less lawyers to help them navigate various things. They also help with, you know, business transactions or whatnot. But there's all sorts of ways that having good social capital in a neighborhood is actually a real benefit to everyone who lives there.
PJ Wehry (16:48.688)
Right.
Eric (17:12.654)
And so one of the things we're doing as we're cultivating relationships with our checkers and our bankers and the guy who owns the bar down the street is we're building social capital. And all three of those establishments that I named, the owners, I know the owners and they see the value of social capital and they're, you we're conspiring together to figure out how we can increase the social capital in our neighborhood.
PJ Wehry (17:37.022)
Yeah. And so when you talk about creating that social capital, you put it in terms of placeless places, which sounds weird, but made perfect sense when you described it in the book and placemaking. So how do you engage in placemaking and what does it mean to have a placeless place?
Eric (17:56.418)
Sure, that's great. So this will take a second to lay it out, I know one of your values is careful listening. So place, so first let's talk about place. Place is, one of the ways to describe it is storied space. And so the easiest way I can sort of help you picture place is a college dorm before you move in is kind of a space. It's a blank canvas. And when, you know, it's just a bed, a dresser, a desk and
PJ Wehry (18:00.465)
Yeah.
Eric (18:26.06)
nothing on the walls. And you come in and you start putting your stuff in, you start putting stuff on the walls and you start living in that space and soon it starts to take on, it feels like your room, right? It's your place. so places, again, are a really important part of belonging. We're constantly place making in that sense of sort of inscribing our stories onto our spaces and whatnot. Now, quick side note, space is not bad in my understanding. We need space also.
So space, know, we talk about if a relationship's getting too intense, we need a little space right now or you know, we go on vacation because you know, things have gotten too full in our life and there's little space. So space can be good. And so place and space both have this role in flourishing life. What's more, a more recent phenomenon is what I'm calling placeless places.
And that would be sort of the standardized architecture of the big box stores that sort of popping up everywhere. And so when you are, you know, a couple miles from here is a good example. You've got Target, you've got PetSmart, you've got the dollar store. You know, you can picture it, right? It's, it's, and you wouldn't know if I popped you, you find the same, right? Exactly. Yeah. We are just there. Right. I mean, you, might see that we have a beautiful, you know, Mount Rainier that would
PJ Wehry (19:42.534)
Yeah, have. Wait, do you live five miles from me? Yeah.
Eric (19:52.472)
blow my story in a moment, but it's cloudy today. So you wouldn't see that. But let's say I popped you right there. You wouldn't know where you were. Right. So you're not, but you're also not sort of in the desert or you're not in a place that where you would sort of, it's not space. It's filled up with activity and it's filled up. It's not like space that you crave, you know, for your, for your wellbeing. It's filled up with stores and stuff and cars and
people, you can't like, it just doesn't hold your story. know, nobody, you know, my wife bought her wedding dress at Frederick and Nelson in downtown Seattle. And, you know, she, that it's no longer Frederick and Nelson, but that building's still there. And when we go to downtown Seattle and she sees that, she'll tell our kids about the experience of being elevated on a platform and someone coming to pin that, you know, get the whole like,
thing they do there and that story is connected with that building. And I don't think anyone's going to talk about Target in that way ever. You know, like, and I go to Target, I'm not against Target, but it's just not a place that holds stories because it's the same everywhere. It's standardized. And, and so I think part of our loneliness isn't just that we don't have friends that we can talk to. It's also that for many people, their experience of running errands
isn't sort of this feedback loop of my story means something. They're just going to target. They're going to a place that exists in thousands of communities throughout the country and doesn't really mean anything to them. So to me, I think that feels sort of empty.
PJ Wehry (21:38.299)
A lot of what you're doing in the book embraces what humans do, but if you don't mind, and I'm just wondering if this tracks along with what you're saying, you said that your story would be blown away by Mount Rainier in the background. And maybe one way to think about the difference between a placeless place and a true place is the way that a place will, one, have that human element to it.
Eric (21:42.179)
Mm-hmm.
PJ Wehry (22:04.316)
that human story, but also it embraces and rejoices in the nature around it. Whereas it feels like a place this place erases it. And so, you know, even as you're talking, I'm thinking of, you know, you, if you were to be in a target parking lot in Washington, you would immediately pay attention to the weather and start looking for a mountain. If you wanted to know where you were, if you were in Florida, you would know, you would know because your shirt would start sticking to you if you were in the parking lot at Target. Right. And so.
Eric (22:09.218)
Yeah, yeah.
Eric (22:23.713)
Exactly.
Eric (22:28.398)
Right, Yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (22:31.718)
What, as you said earlier, if you're in Florida, you're immediately looking for the nearest air conditioning. Like that's, it's made for that, right?
Eric (22:37.23)
Right, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So you're right. The natural environment is, that's what's one of the things so wonderful about it is it's so placey, right? And I do think part of the reason maybe I don't spend a lot of time on that is I do think that's one area where Americans have regained or retained a sense of the value of place. You I think they see that the natural environment is, and there's a lot of people who are real
PJ Wehry (22:46.695)
Yes.
Eric (23:06.478)
tuned into that and want to preserve those places and that kind of stuff. I think as an American, contemporary American person, I want to make sure we don't forget about civic places and the built environment. I often ask people when thinking about place, like you have relatives coming from out of town and you want to show them around, where are you going to show them? Those are your places.
PJ Wehry (23:19.603)
Yes.
PJ Wehry (23:34.845)
Yes.
Eric (23:35.682)
I don't know, I can imagine some people don't have a very long list, depending on where they live. And that makes me sad.
PJ Wehry (23:45.715)
Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're not going to take someone to the local, the local target, right? Like that's, it's like, let me show you, you know, Orlando and you take them to.
Eric (23:53.454)
Yeah, or a big freeway exchange, big freeway exchange that costs billions of dollars. It's an impressive engineering feat, but you're just not going to show someone that. It's just not, I don't know. It's just not very placey.
PJ Wehry (24:05.566)
Yes, absolutely. And I, yeah, and I wasn't intended. I, you didn't mention a lot about nature, but that didn't really fit your argument. I was just wondering if that was kind of adjacent to it. Yeah.
Eric (24:15.918)
No, I'm glad you mentioned it, because it's an important part of place for sure. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (24:21.886)
So I think we've kind of covered placeless and place. What is placemaking? What are some of your favorite examples of placemaking?
Eric (24:34.801)
Yeah. So, I mean, I talked about, so I think it, just to kind of get our heads around it, because it's, is a, be a little bit of foreign concept. I do think my dorm room example is good to set us off on this notion of like, I think we all naturally do placemaking in our interior spaces, right? I mean, you, you do that as as a college student moving into the dorm, you do that as a homeowner or apartment dweller. We just naturally will sort of inscribe our story and our, our, ourselves.
PJ Wehry (24:45.597)
Mm-hmm.
PJ Wehry (24:52.519)
Right.
Eric (25:04.064)
on our internal spaces. And I think maybe what's not new, but maybe foreign to a contemporary American audience is think about place making in the external world, outside of our homes, in the civic spaces. so traditionally that's what town planners did is they built towns. That's why I'm a huge fan of what I call pre-World War II neighborhoods and anything that was built pre-World War II
is going to have a sense of place making that's just naturally built into it. is the, so what they did then as opposed to now is they kind of mapped out the, you know, the, the neighborhood or the town. And they would think about these are the, these are the major, places where we want an important civic building to sit that everyone can see that this is our pride and joy, this courthouse or this church is going to go here. And those would be, and then we'll build the.
We'll build the streets to highlight those. There's something called a terminated vista. I love to point out to my family when we get one where you're driving down a road and you see in front of you the Capitol or a civic building that's just framed perfectly by the trees along the street or somehow by the buildings that line the street. it just brings it to your attention. And you sort of, build this sense of drama as you approach it. So that was just any, a...
relatively small town in America would be built with a sense of place in mind. Whereas now we tend to think in terms of economic value and privatization. So you would take a chunk of land and a developer would figure out where is the best parcels of land that I can sell for the most expensive houses. And the city will say, well, you need to have a park in there. You need to have 20 % of it.
public access or whatnot. And they'll figure out how to make that work, you know, that doesn't, you know, steal as much of their valuable real estate. that'll that'll be, it'll be sort of wonky and it won't relate to the development next door. There'll be two separate kinds of things. There's not a sense of cohesion between them. So that's kind of placemaking as we experience it. Most of us are not town planners. Most of us don't have that sort of large scale kind of ability. But I do think that
Eric (27:28.846)
We're seeing place making place making is kind of coming back I do think when I first started this this journey of writing about walkable places and all these kinds of things it was a it was a very novel kind of concept and people were really not seeing the problems of strictly an automobile oriented sort of placelessness and so now placemaking is coming back and you'll see Even developers are thinking about how do we build a sense of place here?
And so private entities are doing that. And again, they'll be critiqued sometimes because they are a profit-making entity and they're really thinking about how do we make a place for the people who can afford to live here or shop here or whatnot. And it feels a little bit not quite as good, but you can have place making it in a more public sense where cities will decide to do a mural projects or whatnot. We have some great murals in Tacoma.
PJ Wehry (28:13.276)
Yeah.
Eric (28:27.982)
They'll figure out here's some blank walls that would be wonderful as murals and they'll do a public process to figure out who gets to paint the mural and what mural, what story is that mural trying to tell? Those kinds of things. You know, of my favorite examples of place making, it's not unique, but it's a little unusual, is like the High Line Trail in New York City. You know, that was an abandoned rail line that just set.
PJ Wehry (28:52.478)
yes.
Eric (28:56.526)
sat derelict for it went to the meat packing district, I believe. And since the way we transport meat changed, it was no longer needed as a railway. And it was just overgrown with weeds and just falling apart. And some group decided to do something about it and turn it into a sort of a walking path. it became this beautiful walking path that people go to. it did change the real estate values of all the
condos that were adjacent to it. that's place making. I mean, just kind of see it. It can be real small scale. know, people can, you know, there's something called tactical urbanism, which is technically illegal in a lot of cases, but you know, where neighbors get together and just decide to do something fun, you know, with chalk and maybe some paint or something and just make a place a little, have a little more, you know,
PJ Wehry (29:36.83)
I was down as the next question. Yeah.
Eric (29:54.84)
feeling to it. There's a, there's a, I can't remember the city that did this, but they would do a, it was kind of a political statement in a way trying to push back against automobile culture. But they would do a contest called a parking, I forget what they called it, but parking lot, parking place contest. And they encouraged residents to pick up a metered parking spot in their town and then.
commit to sort of feeding the meter all day with quarters or whatnot, but use that parking space for something other than a car. So they would roll out like, you know, turfs of grass and put a bench there. They would create like a little, you know, marathon monopoly game with couches and they would just, you know, help us see all the space that we've dedicated to cars could be rethought as more human scaled pursuits. so yeah, anyway, place making is
PJ Wehry (30:28.84)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (30:34.654)
Yeah
PJ Wehry (30:49.469)
Yeah.
Eric (30:50.112)
a little hard to piddack because we don't see it very often, you know it when you encounter it. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (30:57.424)
I, one example you in the book that I loved, and I can't remember the name of the park, but it was obviously very personal to you because each of your kids found value was rejuven, the rejuvenation of the specific park in Tacoma, Washington. I forgive me. can't remember the name of it.
Eric (31:12.078)
Uhhhh
PJ Wehry (31:13.52)
Lincoln?
Eric (31:15.551)
Was it right, Park? I can't remember. I wrote this 10 years ago, some of my examples are escaping me.
PJ Wehry (31:17.586)
That's it. Yeah, see it. Apologies. But the city chose... The Highline example is great because that took a lot of creative vision. What I loved about the park being rejuvenated in Tacoma was that the city took ownership of a public space and said, this is going to be something worthwhile. Because before that...
It had become, and I've actually seen this similar thing in a childhood neighborhood I no longer live in, but we had this nice park and then all of sudden over the years it started attracting the wrong kind of, like, it was dangerous. It was not just like, oh, this person's a stranger. was like, there were problems. And they put work in and they changed it and it has become somewhere that is making the community flourish again. And so, and that doesn't take a lot of vision. That just takes a little bit of elbow grease.
Eric (31:57.283)
Right.
Right.
Right.
Eric (32:10.752)
Right. Right. Absolutely. Thanks for mentioning that example, because I do think it's becoming a little more common now where cities, I think, are more and more seeing the value of place and that just helps that sense of belonging and it helps in all sorts of ways to increase social capital. And they are looking for opportunities to turn throwaway places or places that are under resourced or whatever into these
these meaningful places. And I think there's a part of us that might be a little cynical about those kind of, see something like we're going to have a public forum to talk about this park. And in a lot of cases, a public forum means the decisions have already been made. We just have a requirement to have community feedback and we're not going to listen to anything you say and we're going to move forward. And that is, that still happens, unfortunately, but more and more I'm seeing a legitimate public process where they want to.
hear from you and they want to find out, know, what do your kids like to do? What do you like to do? What's valuable to you? And so I would just encourage, you know, listeners, if you're interested in placemaking is, is don't dismiss those invitations your city might give to be part of a process because they might actually mean it. I mean, they might not, but, but, don't just assume they don't.
PJ Wehry (33:23.58)
Yeah. Yeah. And you might have us, even if they don't mean it, it might be a long shot to convince them to change at that point, but you still have a shot.
Eric (33:33.526)
Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah. But I don't know if you watch Park and Rec, but they do a great job showing these public forums that are complete, you know, nonsense. Yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (33:36.188)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (33:43.775)
Yeah, it's been a while, but yes, yeah, yes. Kind of adjacent to the book, one of the things I really appreciate about what you're doing here, even as you, most of time when you talk about, like, if you told people you're writing a theology of place-making or theology of, and you're very, the theology is there, but you have this robust vision of common grace, and it kind of infuses the whole book.
Eric (34:06.126)
Mm-hmm.
PJ Wehry (34:13.598)
for Christians and for people who aren't Christians to hear what the difference is, what do we lose when we lose sight of the big picture of common grace?
Eric (34:27.886)
So I just want to make sure I understand what you're at. You're asking about common grace, not common good. mean, they're related terms.
PJ Wehry (34:38.207)
Whichever one you want to answer. I was asking about common grace, but common good is okay, too.
Eric (34:40.077)
Okay.
Okay, so let me answer and see if it sounds like what you're looking for and then we can switch to common good. Something about your question made me think common good. So common grace is this idea that God blesses humanity in all sorts of ways and can utilize people to do good even outside of the Christian community. For a non-Christian listener, that might sound a little severe, but that's how we understand it.
that it's not only Christians that can do good things is when we have our same common grace. And when you think about place making or sense of belonging in the civic realm, Christians can't do it alone, right? We have to collaborate with our non-Christian neighbors and our city officials that are not gonna be able to bring their faith to bear on what they do. And so we have to recognize that they might be doing something that brings...
that pleases God, even though they're not Christians, right? We can value the fact that they're interested in making this neighborhood more of a place than a placeless area. so recognizing common grace allows us to collaborate with our non-Christian neighbors to make this stuff happen. There can be, if we don't have a sense of common grace, if a Christian hears the value of place, the value of placemaking, the value of
of these kinds of relationships, their temptation will be, well, how can we do this on our campus? We're gonna, third place is really good, that these coffee shops are really valuable for a neighborhood. Let's make a third place right in the middle of our fellowship hall. And then only, it'll be this Christian third place. And that's not bad. I don't mind a coffee shop in a fellowship hall, but it's not doing the same thing. It's not building that sense of community. I think part of what we,
Eric (36:38.134)
As Christians, we're called to seek the shalom of the places to which we've been called, right? That command was given in Babylon, you know, it was not Jerusalem. So they were supposed to be interested in the shalom of the Babylonians that lived there as well. And I take that seriously. And so we want to make our neighborhoods as shalom-like as possible. And so that involves placemaking. That means we're going to collaborate with people who aren't Christians. And in order to do that,
We have to understand common grace or we're gonna feel like, why are we working with the bad guys? It has to be completely Christian run or it's not gonna be valuable to God. I think it opens our imagination to who could do good things. Was that what you were asking about?
PJ Wehry (37:13.95)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (37:25.264)
And if we don't have it, yeah, I mean, that's the, yeah, I wasn't sure how you'd answer. I was excited. So that was a great answer. And what I hear is if we lose that, we become insular, right? Like, it's like, it has to be the Christian that, you know, and I see churches like that, right? Where it's like, we don't work with other people, you know, much like, you know, anyways. So, but you had a, go ahead.
Eric (37:31.394)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. All right.
Eric (37:37.752)
Yeah, yeah.
Eric (37:46.68)
Right.
Eric (37:50.51)
Well, that was one of my, one of the, I was gonna say one of the things that I can't reference this book or one of my previous books, but I talk about just, just one of the things churches needs to do is get to get to know their city officials, to get to know the person responsible for their neighborhood and the larger city and, kind of, you know, like, I love your, one of the values of your podcast of really careful listening, but, go in and really listen to what he.
What are your concerns in this neighborhood? What are you worried about? Not that you're necessarily going to come up with a solution, but just kind of get to know them from their perspective. And one of the things that I've seen a lot of churches do is the first time they meet their city officials is when they need something, you know, we're going to expand the sanctuary. And so we need a variance on the zoning. so, you know, that's when they, and all of sudden it becomes this contentious relationship. Whereas if they see you as like, you're, you're not the only, but you're part of the, the,
PJ Wehry (38:29.597)
Right.
Eric (38:43.82)
neighborhood and people who care about the neighborhood. That just brings a lot of good is to see yourself in partnership wherever possible.
PJ Wehry (38:54.07)
And I think it leads directly in, I said something earlier, and you said it made you think of common good rather than common grace. Do you want to elaborate on that? you just mentioned the good that comes out of that.
Eric (39:05.134)
Yeah, I think common good is shalom, know, that sense of seek the shalom of the neighborhood. So good, that is not just good for me and my community, my church, for my shareholders, if I'm a for-profit entity. The common good is shared broadly and as Christians, I believe that we're called to try to pursue common good for our neighbors and it can help them.
see the goodness of God. I think a lot of non-Christians look at Christians or look at the church as a tribe, like any other tribe, that's going to go after things that benefit it. if that means taking away from someone that's not in their tribe, so much the better. And unfortunately, we live into that perception sometimes too well. And I think we have to work, I think, to let them see that, no, we're actually
Interesting the common good, not just our good.
PJ Wehry (40:09.318)
I had a great question for a follow-up and I just totally lost it because I got lost in your answer. Good answer. So I'm actually part of a church plant right now. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but we are in a suburban desert. And so we're meeting in a gym right now. And in the next couple of years, we're going to be looking for a place to make our own church home.
Eric (40:15.236)
dear.
Eric (40:21.838)
Okay. Yeah.
Eric (40:28.578)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric (40:38.158)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (40:39.07)
I loved what you had to say about walkability and then I looked around and I was very disappointed.
Eric (40:48.238)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (40:52.594)
There's all the ways I get into that. But you could spend lifetimes trying to undo neighborhoods, And millions of dollars. Yes. So how, for someone, if you can't change the walkability, if you can't change what's around you, what are things you can do? You've talked about
Eric (41:00.844)
Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that may not be your that's not your calling to fix that. Yeah.
Eric (41:14.498)
Yeah. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (41:19.804)
making it in an embedded church. doesn't sound like you can do exactly that in a suburban, walkable, know, walkability desert. What are some things that a church can do to enhance that? How can we place make in a suburban desert? Maybe that's the right as a church.
Eric (41:23.648)
Right, right, Yeah.
Eric (41:36.75)
Great question, great question. So I'm gonna give you a couple answers that will stray away from my own book, actually. So there's a guy, and I don't know what he's doing now, so this is a little bit of an older reference, but Randy Fraze was a pastor, I think he might still be, and he wrote a book called The Connecting Church that came out somewhere in last couple decade or so.
PJ Wehry (41:47.207)
Okay.
Eric (42:05.966)
Um, and he is suburban, was a suburban pastor and had read a lot of the same people, Jane Jacobs and James Howard, counselor and address 20, all those guys he'd read and he thought, yeah, they're onto something and ask the exact same question you're asking. How do we, okay, we're not going to change this suburban mega church that I'm at, but how do we, how do we pay attention to these truths in this context? And he, you know, he could tell it better than I can, but what I remember is he talked about, um,
PJ Wehry (42:21.679)
Yeah.
Eric (42:34.616)
taking geography more seriously. And so instead of aligning his church around lifestyle or demographic affinities, like we're gonna have all the young families be in a small group here, and we have the old people do that thing here, we're gonna have the singles do this. He organized his church, his mega church at that time, around geography. So if you are in this elementary school district, you're part of this group, and we're gonna try to build small groups that are
at least as based on proximity more than lifestyle or life stage. And so that way, yeah, these are the people you're not running into them while walking, but you are going to maybe be at the same grocery store as them. And you're going to be, there is some proximity that can be capitalized there. And talked about suburban homes. We didn't really get into this, but they're because of the automobile orientation, they're, turned backwards on the traditional home. Whereas the traditional home used to have a,
plate glass window in the front, a porch in the front and a front yard that you would see people walking on your sidewalk in front. Now suburban homes are turned backwards. Everything's oriented to the backyard and the front is kind of just a blank slate or kind of a showpiece, like some big columns and a big three-car garage, depending on where you're living. So it's really turned around and it's meant for you to enjoy life with your family in the private sphere of your home. Nothing terrible about that. But what Frase did,
was, and I'm sure there's some HOAs that would have problems with some of this, but he dragged a bench to his front yard and he put his play equipment for his kids in the front yard, kind of breaking convention, just so that when he got home from work, he could sit in the front yard and his kids are playing and he could greet his neighbors as they walk. So just little things like that where he tried to capitalize on geographic proximity, even if the environment was set up more for cars. So that's one thing I would say.
The other thing I'd say is on the secular front is there is within the new urbanist movement, and that's been really influential for my thinking. There's a lot of good thinking about what they call retrofitting suburbia because there's a, even in the most automobile oriented environments, you've got city officials and whatnot that want to bring back some human scaled kinds of things. so things like when a mall dies and a lot of malls are dying right now.
PJ Wehry (44:45.778)
Mm-hmm.
Eric (45:02.136)
their, how they rebuild that to reconnect with the urban fabric can be quite interesting. So just paying attention to some of those, there's a lot of books out there. think retrofitting suburbia is one that's a secular book, but it talks, it gives examples of what people are doing to kind of, build, walkability. So that's not exactly answering your question. I, yeah, I think if I would just say, as much as is possible.
PJ Wehry (45:07.87)
Mm.
PJ Wehry (45:25.04)
No, think it, yeah.
Eric (45:31.128)
Try to keep proximity in mind when you're connecting with people and try to push back against the extreme privatization that can happen in an automobile oriented. So try to get your people to figure out some natural ways to connect with their neighbors. from a ministry standpoint, the difference between a suburban
style ministry and what I would call an urban or neighborhood style ministry is in a suburban style ministry, most things have to be programmatic. If you want to meet your neighbors, you have to put on an event and tell your neighbors to come to the event because that's just, they have to get in their car and they have to park and they have to, and so in a, in a, in a neighborhood or urban environment, you can engage your neighbors by just going to the store, uh, walk into the store, you know, like I run into my
my checker friend and she introduces me to someone else in line and we kind of build relationships that way. So it's organic. And I do think church plants, even in a suburban environment can figure out some ways to be a little more organic. So I think Randy Frazee's idea of putting the bench in his front yard was a nod to the organic. Like I'm gonna figure out what the rhythms of my neighborhood are. My neighbors come home, I don't know, six o'clock after they finish their, they're gonna pull into their.
driveway and that door is going to open up, but I'm going to wave to them before they do that. And I'm going to, you know, maybe figure out a way to entice them to come and have a brief chat with me on their way home. I'm to do that every day until they start to see that I'm available for conversations. So, yeah.
PJ Wehry (46:58.3)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (47:13.328)
I just read your book in the last couple weeks, but it's funny because it immediately resonated with me. we went from two to five kids in three months. We had a baby and then we adopted two kids. we had to make some radical changes to the way we cooked and we ate. The budget changed wildly. It was a
Eric (47:27.314)
my goodness.
Eric (47:39.072)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PJ Wehry (47:42.759)
And one of things I started to do is I started to make homemade bread and I figured out very quickly that for five more minutes a day, I could make a second loaf of bread, no problem. And then I just started taking it to my neighbors. And that sounds like, yeah, and it's not, it's just flour and water. It's not like super expensive. And so that is that, that, mean, I just want to make sure we're walking along the same tracks, not to toot my own horn, but that seems what you're talking about.
Eric (47:53.454)
my gosh, great idea, great idea, yeah.
Eric (48:06.798)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, you do that. That's a blessing to that neighbor and they feel a little more connected to the neighborhood. Also, your other neighbors see you doing that and they think, that expands their imagination. We're the kind of neighborhood where people bring bread to each other. That's cool. I think now that you mentioned it, think having a try to get potlucks going would be a great... The other book I'll mention, The Art of Neighboring is quite good. I don't know if you had...
Dave Runyon or Jay Pathak on your show, but those guys are brilliant. their stuff applies to suburban neighborhoods, how to build connections with your neighbors. And they have a real simple grid, where they do a tic-tac-toe board and you put your house in the middle. then you think of that, you know, I'm talking about the eight neighbors that whoever, how are you, you might be living in an apartment building, you might live in a suburban cul-de-sac, but the eight people that live closest to you, let's say those are your eight neighbors.
PJ Wehry (48:53.623)
yes, remember you, yes, righty about this.
Eric (49:05.472)
And then they have this great, it's a great test. They're like, right, write down their names if you know them and write down anything you know about them that, that's not obvious from just looking at where they live. Like, it's not like if they have a sports team flag up, you can't use that, but something that basically they'd have to tell you. And then if that score isn't very good, then you've got some work to do. You have to figure out how do I get to know my neighbors? and bringing bread is a great.
PJ Wehry (49:10.852)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (49:20.773)
Yeah, right.
PJ Wehry (49:31.123)
Hmm.
Eric (49:32.814)
example of how to do that. But there can be a lot of things. can have neighborhood potlucks, can have neighborhood meetings. Potluck can be a little bit of a risk for some people, know, that feels a little much, but you can have neighborhood meetings where you just serve coffee. Sometimes you can get you can draw people by talking, we're gonna talk about safety, you know, we just want to exchange phone numbers and just so we know each other's faces. So if somebody is not you is coming into your house, I can maybe let you know.
something like that. Like some people will do that and that starts, you can build on that. Like let's not just think about safety, but let's think about how to, you know, find common interests and help each other out. So.
PJ Wehry (50:13.142)
I want to be respectful of your time. did want to go back. You talked a little bit about churches trying to create a third place. What are your thoughts on that for a church in suburbia? Do you find that that just tends to be very insular? Are there ways to avoid being insular? Do you think that just doesn't work?
Eric (50:33.71)
no, I don't think it's, I don't think it just doesn't work. I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it can be your best idea, your best, your best decision given your circumstances. Right. And so I think, it may be that the only, possibility of a coffee shop is in your church because of zoning. I would think that's probably the case. and so if a church does want to build a coffee shop on their
property, I think they can do that and they can make it, you can get a lot closer to a real third place than, there's a range of how successful you could be. And I think one thing you could think about is making it really clearly a secular type. How do we invite our non-Christian neighbors to want to come to this place? Either having really good coffee or having just the right vibe or music or whatnot and not.
PJ Wehry (51:14.59)
Hmm.
Eric (51:31.278)
you know, having Bible tracks on every table or, you know, not making it, making sure people know that we really intend not just people from this church to come here. mean, a lot of churches perennially have this problem. They're oh, we're welcoming to strangers, but they don't realize how many cultural barriers they put up to someone coming through those front doors. know, there's so many things about, know, so you have to make sure your coffee shop doesn't have those kinds of barriers. And it signals that we want, we really want you to be here. So there's,
There's, there, there are good examples. there, there, there are lot of ways that a church could, in a suburban context could, signal that they want people who aren't part of the church to be on our property. know, you can make your space available for, you know, exercise classes that aren't run by church members. can make them available for, neighborhood forums that the city wants to put on. They just need a large space to have a thing or what, you know, so there's a lot of ways you can.
PJ Wehry (52:30.238)
Hmm.
Eric (52:30.252)
make your space more welcoming to the public.
PJ Wehry (52:34.888)
Thank you. And just so kind of as we close here, one question I always like to ask, though in this case, your book is just so practical. And I feel like our conversation has been just so immediately applicable that sometimes I have people on who talk about Heidegger and Hegel. so this question is, think, a little more relevant. But besides buying and reading your excellent book with the cool cover, what would you recommend?
Eric (52:59.982)
Yeah, yeah, I love that camera.
PJ Wehry (53:04.776)
to someone who has listened for the last 45 minutes to either think about or do over the next week in response.
Eric (53:15.118)
Great question. I mean, I think.
I would say don't waste your opportunities for civic engagement. And those are shrinking. So you might be picking up your kids from school. You might be going to the grocery store. You might be going to the post office for whatever reason. And so you're going to be standing in line or next to other humans. And I would say try to resist the temptation to pull your phone out and fill your mind with
interesting tidbits of cat videos or whatnot. And just look at the people a little, not in a creepy way, but just sort of signal that you remind yourself that you're in the presence of other people, human beings that have inherent value and maybe try to practice civic conversation. And that's a lost art, but just commenting on the weather or
PJ Wehry (53:55.25)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (54:17.533)
Hmm.
Eric (54:22.222)
That's a nice bracelet you have, where did you get it? Or whatever, just little things. You gotta be careful. You can definitely stray into creepy territory really quick. But I think even if you don't say anything, just as a thought experiment, just try to see the people as people. And not, it's so tempting, I do it all. I have to remind myself constantly to pull the phone out. And it's so much more interesting to see what's going on there. But just to pay attention to people around you and just be.
PJ Wehry (54:28.695)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (54:38.462)
Hmm.
Eric (54:52.224)
available for whatever might happen. Pay attention to the place. Where am I? What's it feel like here? there any natural, you know, what do I think about the way this building is designed? Whatever, but try to pay attention to people and place as you go about your everyday life and see what happens.
PJ Wehry (55:10.867)
Dr. Jacobson, beautiful answer, lovely talking to you. Thank you so much for coming on.
Eric (55:17.28)
Absolutely. Thanks. I enjoyed the conversation as well.