A Portrait of My Hometown

The Grand River ebbs and flows lazily through Galt, the historical district of Cambridge, Ontario.

Have you ever paused to consider how a place comes to find itself haunted? Haunted in the old-fashioned sense of the word: laden heavily with experience, nostalgia, and memory, rather than the modern fare of ghosts, spirits, and phantoms.

In Ireland, for example, the idea of a haunted place runs rampant, so much so that there is a particular phrase attributed to these locations: liminal spaces. In literature and history more broadly, a liminal space is a place of transition, a threshold between one thing and the next—between seasons, between relationships, between worlds. Ever caught between their ancient Celtic past dripping with the dew of druids, folklore, and fairies and their industrialized future under the shadow of Great Britain, it comes as little wonder that Irish literature carries with it a sense of the haunted and hallowed.

In his novel, That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis, who was himself of Irish descent, paints a portrait not only of a haunted Ireland or even a haunted Britain, but a haunted history of Europe. One of the most chilling passages in the story takes place around the final third of the novel as three characters—Jane, Dimble, and Arthur—make their way through a dark and rainy forest in search of the wizard Merlin from Arthurian legend.

As the three companions venture further into the bowels of the dark wood, Dimble, the oldest among the group, begins to sense that they are on the brink of passing some threshold from which they, quite possibly, cannot so easily return: “The change from the road to the field was as if one had passed from a waking into a phantasmal world. Everything became darker, wetter, more incalculable. Each small descent felt as if you might be coming to the edge of a precipice.”

As the sense of place begins to weigh upon Dimble and company, his mind starts flipping through all those dusty pages of history which he consumed over his lifetime as a scholar:

“‘The Dark Ages,’ thought Dimble; how lightly one had read and written those words. But now they were going to step right into that Darkness. It was an age, not a man, that awaited them in the horrible little dingle. And suddenly all that Britain which had been so long familiar to him as a scholar rose up like a solid thing. He could see it all.”

This phenomenon of liminal spaces is by no means limited to the isle of Ireland, or to Britain, or to the crumbling pages of ancient texts. Pitch your tent in a place long enough, and it will undoubtedly begin to take root in your memory. In time, your memories and experiences will even shape the location itself, creating a new place that is not entirely its own—owing much of its character to you and your influence, whether for good or for ill.

Are not our respective hometowns almost haunted in a similar way? Caught as they are between the warmth of our dimly lit nostalgia for a childhood come and gone, and the desire to flee as far as we’re able from the bounds such memories and experiences might impose upon us?

Even the ministry of Jesus was not immune to the innumerable vices, criticisms, and memories of His own hometown. In Mark 6:1-6, we read that Jesus visits Nazareth of Galilee, His hometown, where He teaches with authority and wisdom about the Kingdom of God. Though the people of his hometown were—even self-admittedly—“astonished” at the wisdom of His teaching and the mighty works of His hands (6:2), they nonetheless responded to Him with ambivalence and unbelief.

Indeed, the crowds of Nazareth thought they knew who Jesus was simply because He lived among them for so long in seeming obscurity: “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (6:3). Mark writes that the people “took offense at him.” The pride of Nazareth was assaulted that one of their own, a lowly carpenter of little repute, should dare speak with authority into their lives on those things pertaining to the soul. The Lord departed from their midst with these words: “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household” (6:4).

I suppose the opposite can also be true—“A hometown is not without honor, except in the eyes of a prophet.” Growing up, I knew many self-proclaimed prophets in my hometown. They were prophets, of sorts, in that they supposed they were to be the ones to put our little town of Cambridge on the map—just as soon as they got out of it, of course. ‘Lamebridge,’ they called it.

The reality is that some of us never do end up leaving our hometowns. Or perhaps we do, just not very far. And maybe we do get far enough away, only to end up back where we started one way or another. I’ve moved four times in my life, all within the past five years, and only one of those moves has found me outside of my hometown of Cambridge. Some way or another, my road always takes me back home.

And you know what? That’s quite alright by me. I know this town, and it knows me. Almost everywhere I go, I find that my memories have cast their shadows somewhere; memories themselves which are lit by the golden light of a childhood flame that has been well tended to over the years with many familiar faces, sights, sounds, and streets.

I know this town. In my mind I can trace the lamplit streets of Blair; the very streets where my wife and I walked and talked for many hours on our first date as the velvety boughs of ancient oaks overshadowed us; not far from there, twin steeples pierce the skyline on the edge of the Grand River, sentinels whispering of what once made our city, our country, a Christian one; and just across the bridge, Galt’s historical district, with its many coffee bars, bookstores, chocolate shops, and pizzerias, each little storefront strung together like little tealights in the dwindling, violet light.

In the best way possible, my hometown haunts me and, perhaps, I haunt it—these are, after all, my memories, my experiences, and my reflections of the place. Of the many thousands of souls who call this town home, no two of us see it in quite the same way. So it is with all hometowns, even your own. For remember, in your striving to live faithfully and as unto the Lord, you will begin to shape the place, hometown or otherwise, even as the place shapes you.

In seeking the welfare of the place wherein the Lord has sovereignly placed you, you are in effect creating a little corner of the world that is not entirely its own, haunting it with Heaven, wherein it suddenly begins to owe much of its character to you and your godly influence as you look beyond this earthly tent to that Heavenly city which you can really call home.

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

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