Deep subject: Chicago Tribune looks at our attachment to our spot in church

Up until the mid-1900s, it was common for regular members of a congregation to pay the church to sit in a specific seat or pew, a practice called “pew rent.” Some churches listed the family’s name on the pew and also marked where the free and visitor seating was located.

Today, although seating is open, many regular churchgoers still flock to the same spot every Sunday. Sociologists who study behavior say it’s not a particularly churchly phenomenon–just human nature.

“It’s all about nesting and feeling comfortable in a familiar place,” said Northwestern University sociologist Bernard Beck. “It’s the same question you might have about students. What makes them sit in the front or the back of the classroom or sit where they do in a movie theater?”

As a teacher, I was always amused by students’ reactions to this sort of thing. If I didn’t know a class, I’d have assigned seats for a while until I learned their names, but after that point, I usually let them sit where they wanted. Of course, their response to freedom was to attach themselves to seats for the next eight months and fight like dogs if anyone tried to take theirs.

And as for Mass? We have no such attachment, although I will say, we have started trying to sit up near the front, in the vain hope that being near the action will keep Joseph more engaged. But we don’t have any particular attachment to any seat. Maybe that’s because we seem to hardly ever go to the same church for two weeks in a row. (Sshhh…don’t tell.)