between worlds

A deep bass beat rippled through the darkness of the dance club. Strobe lights flashed outlines of bodies, some clinging, some flailing, some just sitting and staring. A newly arrived English teacher to Burkina Faso, West Africa, this wasn’t exactly the way I had anticipated learning about a new culture. However, my new West African friends had mistakenly assumed that because I was American, this would be the scene in which I felt most comfortable. I am neither a clubber by personality nor a dancer by ability.

I ordered a Coke and did my best to play wallflower – not an easy task for one of two nasaras (white people) in the room. Pondering the scene, I realized ironically that I was the only person in the room not donning the “American” uniform of jeans and T-shirts. As the beat shook the walls, we abandoned our attempt at conversation and coolly turned our attention to the crowd, all the while Solomon’s warning about chasing the wind thundering through my head (Ecclesiastes 1 & 2).

With tight Levi’s, smooth moves, and Coke bottles, the clubbers of the night chased their imagined version of the American dream. In class, my Burkinabé students echoed similar assumptions, believing that American streets were literally paved with gold. Consequently, it wasn’t difficult to understand why a ticket to America was their dream come true (especially since most of the roads in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital city, were not paved at all). This mentality recurred throughout Ouagadougou – American flags on T-Shirts, pictures of American movie stars on billboards, or American rock classic playing in restaurants. Continue reading “Chasing the Wind: The Fallacy of the American Dream vs. ‘The Good Life’” →

Intercultural Marriage: a Model of Reconciliation for the Church

March 31, 2008December 9, 2013 between worlds

“Many waters cannot quench love,” I pondered Solomon’s words sitting on a dusty porch in West Africa, the afternoon downpour pounding on the tin roof over my head. “But they certainly do a good job trying to drown it.”

My boyfriend was spending the summer at his parent’s home in Sri Lanka while I was teaching English in Burkina Faso. At that time, there was little access to phone lines or email, so our only form of communication was the relentlessly slow exchange of letters. From the beginning, we had both sensed a unique kinship between us in spite of our cultural backgrounds. However, we also realized that such a relationship carried many complexities, and that our cross-continental lives would not combine easily. When our respective summers ended, we reunited for the fall semester, somewhat unsure of our future together.

“You remind me of a Sri Lankan girl,” he told me one day, raising his deep eyes to meet mine. I had no idea what a Sri Lankan girl was like, but I was thrilled. Obviously, he connected deeply to something in me, regardless of my cornfield upbringing and blond hair. From the first day we met, I sensed an eerily similar reflection of myself in him. There were moments, of course, when we weren’t sure how to connect – meeting our families, interacting with hometown friends, navigating the chasms between third-world realities and first-world luxuries. While these cultural differences were a significant part of our relationship, our similarities ultimately prevailed. Nearly four years later, we married in a joyful ceremony, surrounded by family and friends from around the world.

Guide me, oh thou great Jehovah. These words sung at our wedding reflect our desire to follow God’s guidance in the steep task of uniting contrasting worlds.We entered the world of intercultural marriage as pilgrims in a barren land, knowing few role-models who had attained such unity across cultural boundaries. Together almost 10 years now, we have two young children and love journeying together through life.

While comparatively few are called to such an intimate cross-cultural partnership, all Christians have a responsibility to seek reconciliation across barriers. In an increasingly diverse society, our ability to establish unity across cultural boundaries is rapidly becoming a key factor in the strength of the church. Because we practice these skills daily, I have found lessons I’ve learned from our relationship to bea microcosm for cross-cultural relations at large.

Here are some skills we find useful in seeking unity across our own cultural differences:

Pay attention, be intentional
Sri Lanka is half way around the world from the U.S. At times, it feels very far away. Being so far removed from our lives, it is easy to fall into an “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” mentality with this part of my husband’s life. This has, at times, caused division between us because an essential part of his personhood lies neglected. Therefore, it is essential to pay close attention to the Sri Lankan part of him, and to seek to incorporate it in our daily lives. We both read the news and follow current events on a regular basis. Our home is filled with reminders of Sri Lanka, from batik wall hangings to photos of sari-clad relatives. We visit Sri Lanka as often as we can afford, prioritizing this over other options, even when inconvenient or complicated. We maintain regular contact with my husband’s family through phone calls, email, and pictures.

In the same way, many live in isolated communities and interact little with other cultures. People in these communities can make intentional efforts to consider differing perspectives by readingbooks or watching films, as well as by traveling to places where they interact across cultures. Just as I must intentionally seek to pay attention to my husband’s culture, so can people pay attention to cultures outside their own as an effort toward unity. As current events, dialogue, and perspectives from other cultures are encountered, a broader way of thinking and interacting with others naturally develops.

Share honestly, listen carefully

Romance, while breath-taking, is not particularly characterized by honesty. As the passionate romance of our relationship has settled into a committed, deeper love, we have shared many moments of intense honesty. At times, it is simpler to avoid such conversations, for we each have our own interpretation of “normal” and fear looking ignorant or prejudiced. However, this kind of honesty brings about true compromise, and ultimately, inner change.

Having grown up in a wealthy, stable, and efficient country, I struggle with certain aspects of Sri Lanka’s developing and conflict-filled environment. My husband has experienced these aspects as “normal” for much of his life.Because these perspectives form an integral part of our core-beings, we feel strongly vulnerable when sharing our fears. This fear creates a reluctance to relinquish my expectations of order, cleanliness, and safety, causing me to shut out a cherished part of my husband’s life.

In a similar vain, he has experienced certain “looks”, discomfort, and ignorance when interacting with people from my home. While I hold deep affinity for my home, it is helpful to separate from my personal attachments in order to hear his emotions. In doing this, I listen without defense, letting him process his feelings honestly.

Ultimately, honesty between cultures is not about being right orwrong. It’s about listening and considering another’s experience without defense or justification. In order to create a safe place for trustworthy relationships, people need to feel they will be heard when sharing honestly.

Be salad, not soup
The idea of a “melting pot” denies the individual characteristics that exist within cultures. A mixed salad is a more accurate comparison, as it contains various ingredients that compose one dish, yet retains unique qualities rather than dissolving everything into the majority flavor. Likewise, in our marriage, we attempt to value the individuality of each other’s cultures.

One way we love each other is by knowing about each other’s homes. For example, my husband knows things about my small hometown that only “insiders” know. He knows where the locals eat a hot breakfast, and the names of high school basketball players. Because he pays attention to my cultural background, I sense a deep love for who I am and where I come from. In the same way, I don shalwar kameez (a traditional Sri Lankan dress) every so often, can cook a mean curry, and enjoy building relationships with his family and friends. Each trip to his home increases my understanding of who my husband is.

When the majority culture blindly expects others to follow their lead without knowledge of other perspectives, they subtly send the message, “You are not important to me. Your importance is to make me comfortable.” Loving across cultures means that both sides release their grip on familiarity in order to experience deeper flavors of diversity.

While many waters could not quench our love, their rough waves have certainly smoothed our rough edges. In all of these ways, we embrace our own culture while keeping our arms open to the other. Guided by our great Jehovah each step of the way, we find deep richness in loving across cultural boundaries. Our hope remains that the church will deepen in its ability to love across such boundaries as well.

Spiritual Formation

Blazing the global trail: Alone on the road?

December 31, 2007October 5, 2013 between worlds

Being in an intercultural marriage often leaves me feeling like a bit of a pioneer – I’m the first in my family blazing this trail, and there’s a lot I’m learning by simple trial and error. One of my struggles has been how to communicate my passion for cross-cultural partnership with those who do not share this vision. In my younger years, I often grew angry and judgmental of those who did not share my “enlightened”, global perspective.
When I lived outside of Washington, DC, where one strip mall boasted stores from multiple continents, there was no short supply of global perspective. However, returning to my Midwestern roots in Indiana has been much more challenging in this regard. Hoosiers (Indiana natives) often deeply cherish their rural roots. While this positively nurtures a deep sense of community, it can also unknowingly encourage an insular, nervous reaction toward different people, places, and perspectives.

My initial reaction was to bemoan this trait. The longer I live here, though, I am beginning to understand how the passions God gives individuals help us remind each other of His character. I know individuals with a passion for the beauty of classical music, the compassion of listening well, the intricacy of nature, the selflessness in caring for the poor, the generosity of service to others. My own giftings in these areas are weak, and from rubbing shoulders repeatedly with such individuals, I learn better how to live.

I recently heard a story about a family who had just returned home with their newborn son. Their three-year-old daughter was insistent on talking to her new sibling in his room, alone, with the door shut. The parents were understandably hesitant, but the little girl was so insistent that they relented, realizing that they could monitor her through the intercom system and intervene if necessary.

Listening curiously, the parents heard the little girl enter her brother’s room, shut the door, walk to the crib and whisper, “Can you tell me what God’s like?” she paused. “I’ve almost forgotten.”

Being a mother of such children so fresh from God, this story staggers me.

What is God like, and how much have we forgotten?

I believe He reminds us of the things we once knew through the unique passions He distributes to his children – nurturing tenderness as a loving mother; expressing passion as defenders of justice; seeking wisdom like a teacher; discovering previously known truths through science; and, for me, relishing in the remarkable diversity of people and cultures He has created.

May God grant us the humility to offer our own passion as a reminder of the depths and diversity of His beauty, and to seek glimpses of what we’ve forgotten as we share with each other.

Culture & Race

What I do Wrong with Race: Confessions from a White Woman

October 20, 2006August 12, 2013 between worlds

Given the title, I feel obliged to begin with some qualifications. I am not, by most definitions, a racist, nor am I a well-intentioned but ignorant white person touting “color-blindness”. I have taught for years in diverse public school settings, where the majority of my students were African-American, Latino, and Asian. I am fluent in Spanish, speak a decent amount of French, have traveled on three continents, and am soon headed to a fourth.

To further qualify myself as an un-racist, my Masters’ Degree is in Multicultural/ Multilingual Education. Many significant influences in my life come from non-Western, non-white perspectives. I teach training courses for teachers of English to speakers of other languages, and regularly incorporate activities reflecting on minority and majority perspectives. On a personal level, my husband’s family comes from Sri Lanka, and my children are bi-racial.This makes me a “minority” in my home. My brother-in-law is African American, and he and his wife are some of our closest friends. Many of my most treasured, life-giving friendships are those with people from other cultures and races.

In contrast, the rural, Midwestern area where I currently live still harbors KKK groups. The lack of diversity in our region of the country contributes to an uncomfortable, and sometimes overtly racist attitude in many people. My husband and I have personally experienced this attitude – teenagers shouting obscenities at us while attempting to run us off the road; refusal at a local restaurant to serve black students from the university where we teach; antagonizing comments about our “half-breed children”; car bumper stickers demeaning Arabs in the name of Christ (“Give your heart to Jesus before an Arab gets you!”)

When I compare myself to some of these overtly prejudiced incidences, it’s easy to feel like I harbor no prejudiced perspectives. However, upon more honest introspection, I cannot deny that, even after years of living between cultures, I, too, stumble over prejudice. While slightly scary to record my prejudiced attitudes in black-and-white, ignoring these tendencies would be even more detrimental to both myself and the people from all races and cultures whom I love.

Here, then, are my confessions:

I use my experience with other cultures as a way to promote myself
One way I see my prejudice is when I use my personal experience within a culture to validate myself to others. A friend of mine who is married to a biracial man admitted once that she uses her husband as a “way-in” to be accepted within the African American culture rather than relying on her character to establish trust and relationship. She would quickly draw out her “I’m married to a black man” card, expecting a warm welcome in response.

Likewise, at times, I selfishly use my husband as a personal validation ticket. While my experience in an interracial marriage certainly provides me with a unique perspective, “using” him for his race to promote myself does not honor his inherent value as a person apart from his ethnic identity, it simply makes him a notch in my “multi-cultural belt”. This attitude itself is prejudiced as it enables me to believe myself better than those who have less experience with other cultures or more overtly racist attitudes than I.

In essence, when I utilize my personal connections to people of other races for selfish purposes, the internal ramifications of my actions are just as malicious as the external actions of consciously racist people – they simply wear a different mask.

I judge a group based on negative experience with one person
Another time I encounter prejudice is when I judge an entire group on my experience with one individual. When I taught in urban public schools, I worked closely with two African American teachers whom I’ll call Betty and Doris. Betty, a highly experienced, hard-nosed, old-school teacher, did her best to squash my first-year teacher enthusiasm. She yelled at me in front of students, talked to me like I was stupid, and made me cry on several occasions.In contrast, Doris, also a seasoned, talented teacher responded to me with an entirely different attitude than Betty. She embraced me, offering suggestions on how to most effectively work across cultures with students. Not only did she teach me about their families, their churches, their neighborhoods, she also took time to know me as a person, and valued who I was as an individual.While Betty had immediately written me off as an insincere, ineffective white kid, Doris had seen value in me apart from the group to which I belonged.

In discussing race issues with an African American friend one day, I recounted my negative experiences with Betty, bemoaning how demeaned I had felt, and how that experience made me feel very hesitant to trust other African Americans. My friend sighed and responded, “Well, yeah. She’s just got issues.” I realized after our conversation that I had completely forgotten the positive experiences I’d had with Doris. When I feel hesitant about my relationships with African Americans, it’s often because I’m remembering myone experience with Betty. In emotionally strained moments, my negative interaction with one African American causes me to lump a whole group into a negative category, even though I have spent years interacting positively with other African Americans.

I hide my convictions instead of sharing vulnerably.
When Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane, he took with him three sincere yet arrogant disciples who swore they would never forsake him. As he poured out his fear and sorrow to His Father; they fell asleep. If Jesus had my prejudiced attitude, he would have walked away from the disciples, dismissing them for their failures. He certainly would have been justified to roll his eyes and whine to God, “See what miserable failures they are?!? I can’t believe they’re acting that way.”

Generally, I respond two ways when I encounter both subtle and overtly racist attitudes: righteous indignation and fear of rejection. Jesus’ reaction to his disciples reveals the need for a further denial of my self, a willingness to see completely beyond my own understanding, and to vulnerably and lovingly risk sharing my heart in order to draw people into God’s passion for all people, not just powerful or predominant groups. By reacting in righteous indignation, I never let people close enough for them to catch a glimpse of His passion. By remaining silent for fear of rejection, I hoard the gift of diversity God has allowed me by focusing solely on protecting my reputation.

Yet, Jesus’ response could not have been more contrary to my own. In Jan Johnson’s Bible study on community and submission[1], she observes that Jesus asked his arrogant disciples to stay close in order to hear his grief. By transparently communicating his own feelings about the reality of the present situation, he draws them in, rather than pushing them away.

A time to speak
It’s not a pretty picture, I must admit. Paul, a recovering racial supremacist, must have felt this angst as he lamented being the worst of the sinners whom Christ came to save. I suspect there were many times when Paul leaned heavily on the mercy shown to his prejudiced perspective through Christ’s unlimited patience and sacrifice (1 Timothy 1:15-16). In the same spirit, I lean deeply into this mercy as I continue on my journey.

Several years ago, our church’s pastor, an African American from our predominately white church, resigned. Our pastor graciously offered various reasons for his resignation, slightly highlighting his disturbances over racial interactions in the church. Ironically, it was not a church in the racist, rural area where I currently live, but in a highly educated, progressive church on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. My heart sunk as I realized there was probably far more pain to his story than I would ever know. I remember sitting in the pew the morning of his announcement, weeping for myself, “Where can we go now?” I lamented to my husband, “If there’s no unity here, in an intentionally racially mixed community, will there ever be a place where we belong?”

My questions echo loudly as we continue to search for a community honest enough to recognize both conscious and subconscious prejudice, bold enough to confront the insidiousness of these attitudes within the Christian community, and humble enough to forgive one another for the ways we do race wrong. May this process first begin with me, a prejudiced white woman.

[1] Johnson, J (2003). Community and submission. Leicester, England: Intervarsity.