Morphemics

CC: Essay 3 and Conclusion

This essay required talking about a "critical incident." Some of you may recognize it from an earlier post.

Duane hit me in the back of the head with a soup can. He was at least four years older than me and somewhat larger. I’m guessing at the age difference because he was in the next class up from me in a two-room schoolhouse. Normally, he treated me fairly decently, which was whenever his friends weren’t around.

My father had built us a swing set from some of the logs that he had chopped down for firewood over the winter. Duane liked to come over and use it. But when the others came over, he would throw the swing around the top so that it was too high to reach. I reacted by quoting the first and only verse of scripture that came to mind. “Ye are of your father the devil,” was not an optimal choice.

I’m now supposed to identify the cross-cultural skill involved. This is not easy. If the question is of the various cultures in which I have lived, being too cross-cultural somehow makes the term lose its meaning. What is the difference between a cross-cultural skill and just a plain old skill? In this case, I cried and went back into the house, never wishing to see Duane again.

Perhaps, however, a cross-cultural skill involves something entirely different from how a home culture reacts to a host culture. Maybe it is a way to move beyond cultural relativity by recognizing something transcendent. Our entire purpose in living among these various cultures was to present the gospel to them. We were bringing them a culture from which their value system could be judged. We had no desire to Americanize them, but we did want the salvation of individuals to be the transformation of their own culture. And so, at the suggestion of my mother, I began exercising a cross-cultural skill that would have been appropriate in any of the cultures I have lived in. I prayed for Duane. He was our only Athabascan convert (1.25% of the population).

What would I do differently the next time? It’s hard to tell. It’s not likely that there could be a next time. This may also point to the unfairness of using this as an example: I was awfully young at the time. I think I acted appropriately for my age. What did I learn from the event? Perhaps that the same skill could be used in other situations. This time, however, I would be older and able to do more than just pray. I also had a wider range of scripture at my command.

Now I was in a situation that couldn’t be limited to a single event; however, it would involve using the same cross-cultural skill that I used in the situation with Duane. While living in Washington, I somehow managed to get involved with several foster-boys. There was a family we knew who had been missionaries to Canada, and, upon retiring from the field, decided to become foster parents. It all started when they witnessed to a teenage boy who was in their home and asking about their faith. He became a Christian, his father was furious, and they nearly lost their license.

And then it occurred to everyone that I didn’t have a license to lose. I could come into their house and say anything I wanted to and the state could do nothing about it. And so I did. Many of these boys came from family situations that constituted a completely different cultural situation than that in the rest of the state. I believe that this is where having moved around among several different cultures helped.

I was able to adapt to their particular situation and communicate on their level. One, in particular, stands out. I tried as much as possible to encourage him in things that were strange to me but that he enjoyed. Hence the expansion of my musical knowledge from classical to grunge (believe me, differing musical tastes can be very cross-cultural). There were other aspects of his cultural upbringing that were not all right, so I judged them. He had been raised by liars, had always lived around them, and was one himself. I constantly caught him in lies and finally told him that I would refuse to believe anything he said until he consistently proved that he could tell the truth.

But this wasn’t all. I wanted to demonstrate a transcendent culture to him. I simply kept my word concerning anything I told him I would do. He liked to talk, so I would schedule Saturdays to spend the day with him and discuss anything that was on his mind. I tried as much as possible to accept him while at the same time rejecting sinful behavior. Could I have done some things differently? Most likely. Did my actions make a visible difference? This is beside the point. What matters is that I was able to use “cross-cultural” skills to provide a tangible demonstration of the gospel.

Conclusion

How am I supposed to answer the questions here? Every one of them assumes that I had always existed in a sequestered home culture when, all of sudden, I intentionally engaged another culture and became a wiser person for it. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to “engage another culture as fully as possible in a specified amount of time.” I never tried to be “deep and meaningful.” Somehow, it always seemed sufficient just to adapt to whatever cultural situation I was in at the time. It may be that I have a somewhat unique vantage point, but I do find the amount of cultural angst that I see in many Reformed circles to be strangely and pathetically amusing. I grew up immersed in this cross-cultural experience that everyone seems to want, yet I fail to see where it makes me any better.

I also find it hard to believe that a short-term visit to a different culture can make that much of a difference in perspective. This kind of thing really requires living there. Personally, I think that one of the best ways to be able to understand one’s own culture and to be able to adapt to others is to study them in light of the transcendent culture of the church, especially in its role as universal and transcending all cultural boundaries.

I can’t really make the before and after comparisons of how this experience has changed my life: I think I’m still in the ever present “during.” What would I do differently if I had it to do all over again? I don’t know. Is there anything about my life that I could change while still retaining my identity?

Posted by kcourter at abril 10, 2004 1:44 AM