Interlude: at the edge of the garden

*

About the church's garden there had been so many discussons.

Do we lock it or leave it unlocked, gang?

Now the governance committee, such as it was, strongly favored locking everything, since, for one thing, this was property and property existed to be protected, existed in some awkward sense as though for itself alone.

You remember the terrible sinking feeling, the feeling of having been raped, when you returned to your car, say, and found the back window broken and your coat and your keepsake album taken. The coat you could replace. But the keepsake album? It was filled with mementoes of your dead ones, irreplaceable items of no value to anyone but yourself. And the thief, perhaps an addict, had probably just thrown all those things into the trash.

Property then was whatever thing whose removal left you feeling violated and punctured.

So was the church's garden like a coat, ready to be shared with anyone without question?

Or was it like that keepsake album? Was it filled with a treasure that you couldn't spare and that another couldn't use?

Or was it balanced just between the two?

*

Now the suburban churches, they weighed in with their opinions, just like everyone else, but their opinions were thrown away like an outdated album. Because by retreating into the suburbs they had already locked their gates and decided the question in advance.

*