Lent Day 30: Thankful for differences

We're almost finished with 20 episodes of "Secret Garden," a Korean comic romance series. Its typical plot contains a few atypical twists and turns - as the rich guy tries to win the poor but feisty girl. Amusing story, no tawdry bedroom scenes, and repetitious music that gets stuck in my head.

Sitting next to W, watching the exhaustion of dating and family melodrama, I'm happy for the day's new insights. I like learning about culture from the stereotypes scriptwriters present about themselves; Korean series explain a lot about their culture's imbedded values. The underlying importance of shame, pride, money, and power run deeper than the words translated into English. The expectations are veiled in sidelong glances and bows at precise angles and speeds––with shoulders hunched or straight, head held rigid or soft. As an outsider, I marvel at the overt and subtle social messages given and received.

I've been in culture shock again this week (after living in the USA for 26 years), watching the responses to collective shame of slavery that ended 150 years ago, imposed on a confused and uncertain population. Many peoples have been slaves in the past without continually memorializing it. Something unusual about this issue remains unforgiven in American history.

I've been reading news from many POVs, asking "What just happened?! this week?" If a gangster-dressed teen of any ethnic background strolls my neighborhood or exhibits suspicious behavior, I'm going to be on guard and call the police. If he or she attacks me and slams my head into the pavement, anyone would fight back or run away. (Who cares in the moment if the attacker is Asian, Hispanic, African-American, Caucasian, or any other blend of human mongrel?) Where I come from, we don't erect a monument and canonize a slain attacker, no matter how nice he or she was to family or friends. And where I come from, no one rises up in collective outrage to protest an ongoing social issue based on a mugging. (I admit my fellow citizens are not big into group protests unless they're unionized. And I hate guns used against other people. More personal cultural baggage.)

We've each grown up with––or inherited––traditions from our culture group that we think are superior to other people's. Guess what? Those others think similar "less-than" things about our worldviews.

I've encountered unshared and puzzling expectations from "other" ethnic groups who make assumptions about me. I've been the only person with my skin color or accent in a room full of people. I've been surprised at being served meals that my mom never cooked in her kitchen.

Such experiences always remind me of the wonder of the many and the beauty of our differences as we've spread across the planet and multiplied into families and villages. I'm not always comfortable but I'm always filled with awe at God's love of creativity and his pleasure in designing us with likeness and difference.

The roots of the same family tree anchor your genetic lineup and mine as humanity has intermarried and intertwined. To a third-culture person like me, it seems obvious that no group of us has achieved more than others. Some tribes are better engineers or gardeners or musicians or artists or boat-builders or writers. Others are better preachers or care-givers or scientists or mathematicians or swimmers or hunters. But tribes rise and fall in history according to the survival skills needed at the time.

Unashamedly, I see mongrel and mutt genetics in all our varied surface wrappings of "black" or "white" or other "colors." God joyfully stamped his image on each of us as he blessed us with human DNA. Whose blood is "pure" something or other? Not one of us. The ongoing "race card" and "African-American vs. other" divide of the USA––which makes the nation shudder and ethnic groups reel against each other over and over––is not part of my childhood story.

I look like many Americans. Middle-aged, blond, fair-skinned, moderately fat, eye-brows penciled in. Yet when I encounter ongoing cultural difficulties as an outsider––those issues that insiders haven't resolved––I'm really taken aback. I read historical documents about American prohibition, slavery, emancipation, suffrage, and riots over industrial exploitation in mines and on railroads. My German and Canadian upbringing doesn't remember any of them and my parents' comments to me in childhood don't bring any of those to mind. But because I look like those around me, others assume I share their values and their collective shame.

Nope. Our clan stereotyped "others" as less spiritual, less tidy, and less hard-working (= less-than our values). My tribe was ruined by barbarians overrunning other barbarians, hidden concentration camps, and immigrant fighting their way from poverty with hard work, much scrubbing, Grimm's fairytales, and careful attention to detail. That's my story. Dirty, glorious, shameful, full of power struggles and God's grace in centuries of terrors and trophies.

We have a hard time forgetting the past and living in the present, and thus, we "bind on earth" what heaven has called us to release.

Part of the glorious hope of our salvation is that some day, when we know ourselves and each other as God knows us, we will be able to set aside our prejudices and the unforgiving presuppositions of our distorted worldviews. Meanwhile, I'm thankful to live in a foreign culture where so much is pleasing and good, where so much progress has been made toward reconciliation. Where conversation continues, however disturbing and puzzling (to me) the ways in which indigenous peoples try to work out their grievances.

Though our fallen natures pull us toward the pit of division and anger, God constantly challenges us to draw near and accept his love, grace, and forgiveness. As he extends his hand to us, we become able to reach out to those who feel hurt, disadvantaged, and dis-graced.

From the beginning, since God made humanity––after all will be said and done––ALL OTHERS are our blood relatives, flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. We are brothers and sisters, whether our own wounded hearts know it or not.

For me, family is everything. Including YOU.

Read more:

*Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day.

 

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. Psalm 96:1-4 NIV

*And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Isaiah 30:21

*Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Moravian Prayer: Lord Jesus, you are not our interpretation of your way, but YOU are simply the way. Knowing this, we commit ourselves to you anew this day confident in knowing that it is you who opens the gate. We seek your guidance in being open about the interpretations others use regarding the details of that way. Amen.

Personal prejudice

Every person is born a bigot. That's my conclusion after reading history and the newspapers. [OK, here comes another controversial post. By now, most of you know that I think and puzzle through my life by writing. If you're in the mood to be offended today, feel free to quit reading. The rest of you, hang on and give me feedback if you like.]

My daughter, who is almost through her application for American citizenship, got tired of a friend's "anti-Canadian" jokes on a day when her body was exhausted and hurting. She let her guard down long enough to tell him it was "idiotic" to constantly yammer about Canucks, and really not that funny because it expressed his prejudice.

"I was only joking," he protested. 

"How would you like it if someone constantly made fun of you for being American?" she asked.

He expressed shock that other countries made fun of Americans. (This is in the deep South, mind you, and her friend has never traveled abroad.) He bugged her until she admitted that sometimes "non-Amis" found Americans annoying in their assumption that the USA is better than everyone else, as well as mistakenly thinking everyone would like to be American.

Her friend turned to her in genuine confusion, "Well, it's true. We are the best... and everyone DOES want to come here." K was so stunned she had nothing further to say.

Reading the news, we find every one of us thinks we are better than our neighbors, than the next country, or other people groups. Definitely our way of practicing faith is better than others' ways! Most of us won't admit our deeply rooted assumptions out loud. But even when economics, wars, or circumstances squeeze us from our hometown, we long for our own families and tribes. Our deep-down, unguarded selves prefer our own foods, our language, and our culture over every other one. 

Yesterday, I read an interesting comment by an AG historian about "Landesdeutsche," the Germans who farmed in Russia like my grandparents did. The writer was obviously annoyed and offended by the stinking German attitude of superiority. "Those people thought they were better than the Russians and never intermarried. When they came to North Dakota, they thought they were superior to the Dakotans. They kept to themselves, with their culture and language, and even joked that German was the language of heaven. They suspected the salvation of others." Well, duh. I laughed out loud. That's exactly how I was raised in church. (And an elder's wife cautioned me with that very thing. "Who knows if the English are really saved?" she said, wringing her hands, afraid for us when we changed churches.)

In Christ alone we find true equality of gender, race, and ethnicity. In God's love we experience complete equality and inclusion. Scripture affirms that God stamped his image on each person, regardless of our distortions, disabilities, or sinfulness. 

I instinctively react to ethnic or national pride because I grew up elsewhere with another identity; though we never would have thought to fly our national flag in church, the place of worship for all tribes and tongues, we sure didn't admit outsiders either. I react against patriarchal condescension in hierarchies because my dad taught me that gifting, not gender, mattered and I watched him treat women as equal partners.  Ugh, with hot tears for all of our prejudices that reflect our deformed, sinful hearts.

All peoples are protective of their upbringing and prejudiced against others. Yet how kind and generous God is as he opens his arms to each man, woman, and child he has created in every heritage. Oh, that my heart would be so like his that I would be color-blind, embracing every human who desires friendship and affirmation. Then others could say, "She has her Father's eyes, seeing the good in everyone." That's my prayer and hope for the day.

How do you show your bias toward those like you? How do you react to others who are different than you? Got any advice about what has helped you see others as God sees them? 

Read more:

*I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; before the “gods” I will sing your praise. I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted. Psalm 138:1-3 NIV 

*Choose my instruction rather than silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold. For wisdom is far more valuable than rubies. Nothing you desire can compare with it. Proverbs 8:10–11 NLT 

*You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26-28 NIV