The documentary Jasper Mall (2020) traces the struggles of a shopping mall in the small town of Jasper, Alabama. The film opens with a mall manager, who also serves as custodian and a security presence, unlocking the mall in the wee hours of the morning. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, the viewer is introduced to a florist, hairdresser, and jeweler who work in the mall, as well as to local townspeople who congregate there on a regular basis. There’s the group of four elderly men who play dominoes and the high school couple who used to frequent the mall on dates and then meet there over coffee after the relationship ended. For the residents of Jasper, Alabama, the mall is a central meeting place, a place where community forms, where retirees get their daily exercise, and where people exchange friendly greetings in true Southern form. One gets the sense that the mall has been a symbol of constancy and stability in this local community since it opened in 1981. Every day, the mall will open, and shops will unlock their gates.
But in reality, all isn’t well at Jasper Mall. Big department stores like JC Penney’s and Kmart have closed. The florist, mentioned above, ends up closing her shop, and other retailers are pulling out as well. The mall has more empty space than rented space. It’s a victim of an unstable economy and of a society that now does most of its shopping online. The ground bass of the movie is a tension between the stability of community found at the mall and the need for business owners to move on to where they can be more successful.
In watching this documentary recently, I was struck by the sense of constancy and stability that a place like Jasper Mall once provided and still provides, to some extent, for the town of Jasper. Constancy, stability, and community are all things we expect from the Church, too. There’s an ordinariness in the Church’s actions that provides some degree of comfort, although it shouldn’t breed complacency. Like the mall manager opening the doors in the wee hours of the morning alone and in the dark, each day someone opens the church doors at Good Shepherd. Usually, it’s just me doing it, and on Mondays, it’s Jim Davis, our parishioner who leads Morning Prayer. We put signs outside the doors announcing that the church is open for prayer, as well as the Daily Office and Mass.
Sometimes, this routine action feels futile. What if no one shows up? Who’s paying attention to the fact that we’re open and have daily services? In Jasper Mall, there’s an underlying anxiety about how and if the mall will survive. To paraphrase one mall frequenter, if Belk leaves the mall, then everyone is in deep trouble. But there’s also a real difference between the anxiety centered on Jasper Mall and the situation of the modern Church. It often appears as if the Church doesn’t matter to many people. We’re told that if more people leave the Church, we’ll be in deep trouble, too. And yet, the Church isn’t vulnerable to the economy or an online culture in the same way as Jasper Mall. The Church, while in the world, is not of the world. Our foundation is not an unstable market economy or the latest trends in how people find community. Our foundation is Jesus Christ, the true cornerstone.
So, in some sense, it doesn’t matter that on many days, we open the church doors and it’s just me or someone else leading Morning Prayer. The point is that prayer happens. The point is that the church is open. We’re always there as a witness to the constancy of the Gospel, to Jesus Christ, “the same, yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). It’s not a failure that only me and another person are present for a Wednesday or Friday daily Mass. The important thing is that the Mass is celebrated and prayer is offered for the sake of the Church and the world. This quiet witness of regularity, dependability, and constancy is the stabilitas of the Church. The Church is always there, and no matter what happens “out there,” the Church will continue to be God’s gift to the world, an abiding presence comprised of the prayerful community of the faithful centered around Christ.
This stability is what St. Benedict valued in his monastic communities. Monks are intended to be a part of one monastic community, together with a particular group of people, and they’re meant to stay in that community for the duration of their monastic lives. They don’t leave when they get bored. They don’t depart the community when someone annoys them. They don’t leave in a huff when something changes. They’re rooted in a particular community, in prayer and in fellowship with one another. As Rowan Williams describes it, the central question for monasticism is, “How good are you at stability?” (The Way of St. Benedict, London: Bloomsbury, 2020, p. 34). This monastic constancy is seen in the liturgy of the hours, the regular rhythm of prayer that simply happens, no matter what else is going on in the world. Our own parish’s rhythm of prayer is modeled on this ancient, constant way of praying.
Stability is countercultural. As the documentary Jasper Mall shows, modern culture can decide it wants to shop online or prefer a different way of doing business, and consequently, once-stable businesses must close up or move elsewhere. It’s true of other forms of community in the world in which people congregate around habits or things that are, in some sense, ephemeral. The yoga studio or the art class could cease to exist one day. But tradition tells us that the Church will endure, no matter how volatile the world is and no matter how many people leave the Church. The Church reflects the stability of Christ.
The theme of this year’s 2025 pledge campaign at Good Shepherd is “Life in Community.” This isn’t some vague notion of celebrating our happy fellowship together. Life in community is about our collective choosing of a life of stability together, with each other. It’s about answering the question, “How good are you at stability?” We live in a day of church-hopping and consumerism, which can make it difficult to settle down in a particular place. But there’s great value to settling down in one place with certain people. Choosing stability is one way in which we are formed by God in relationship with one another.
Happily, Jasper Mall is still open, despite its precarious situation. And although there was a time when it was uncertain as to whether Good Shepherd’s doors would remain open, we’re more than open. I’m so grateful for our few parishioners who stuck with the parish in its most difficult years. They’re witnesses to stabilitas. Now, Good Shepherd is not just open; it’s thriving and growing. I believe this will continue to happen, but regardless of what occurs outside the Church, we at Good Shepherd won’t stop opening our doors each day for prayer. We will show up, even if it’s just a few of us. We’ll do something that has great meaning and value no matter how many people are involved in it: we will pray. Thank you for your commitment to this place of stability, and may you be blessed by the constancy and stability that is found in our life in community.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle