May 11, 2007
Now I See the Difference
During a recent forum I used the word Spanish in reference to a local non-profit program. As soon as the group took a break a woman approached me saying, “You shouldn’t use the word Spanish. We don’t want to be called Spanish, we’re Hispanics. People from Spain are Spanish, we’re Hispanics.” Although she probably thought she was helping to correct future faux pas, I was caught off guard. Jesus wants us to look at the heart, without seeing culture or nationality. I’d never seen any difference between us, until she pointed it out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Gail;
-----I stand beside you, yet, all the way, 359 degrees, around the circle. When it comes to who is my neighbor, my client, my friend, or my mentor I have no qualification based on skin color or cultural background. But do I have a preference? In a small way I might. I like being around people who are a bit different than me. And I definitely like talking to people who think differently than I do. I know my kind, and I appreciate my kind, but I have my kind in myself and my family. I admire and appreciate other kinds and love being around them. I look at all of the peoples and cultures of the world as a mosaic. Each one has its unique qualities and its own faults. And each one makes its individual contribution to the colorfulness of life and to the disgustingness of death.
-----It is my belief that the Lord also loves the variety of life found in the differences of all the cultures. I think that is the lighter side of what the division of the world was about at the Tower of Babel affair. He didn’t want all of the pretty clay colors mixed back into one gray lump. And He was careful to detail the different peoples and the names of the different places where they settled, because they were together His variety valued by Him enough for that recognition.
-----I believe that the more serious side of the division was His unwillingness to allow all people to fall under the influence of one mentality, or of one culture. For each culture does have a weakness to add to the world’s detriment. So also does each individual, as well as any sub-groups. If any person, group of people, or culture comes into dominance over all others until it achieves a superiority of control such as Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin exploited, then the errors of that person or group will simply be mass produced throughout the controlled people. That is why I think the great evils of the government portrayed in the Book of Revelation are held at bay by the division of the world population into a variety of cultures, languages, and nations until their time. In the same way, I do not believe super-personalities or mega-churches are healthy for the Lord’s body.
-----It should now be apparent what I believe made America such a great nation. Until the last few decades it was allowed to exist as a mixture of different cultural backgrounds, each being able to contribute its benefits to the whole, each recognizing the whole as bigger than itself. The bigger whole was able to knock down the rough edges of each sub-culture. But entering into this new millennium, it has become popular to empower a certain few cultures, protect just a few cultures, and promote a few cultures above the rest in order to dissolve the sin of a few other cultures.
-----The net effect is that America now lives in a state of heightened sensitivity to cultural differences. If that sensitivity were from a mutual respect, then we would not witness the disparity between the treatment given to Don Imus and the free pass given to those who throw around terms like “white cracker.” The sensitivity is more about irritability and less about admiration; it is more towards a few cultures than towards all of our cultures. The sensitivity is giving ever more life to the dangerous and controlling pattern of political correctness which seeks to dominate and dissolve the variety of thought that makes us strong.
-----I will humor the sensitivities of a person and call that person whatever he/she likes to be called except for God, perfect, or crucial. Our individual beauty is in our smallness. And the beauty of a culture is also is in its smallness. All of our small beauties together was the beauty of America, and is the beauty of Christ’s genuine Church hidden amongst us.
this is a test
Post a Comment