Cultural Change and Metaphors

Much of cultural change arises from the introduction of new metaphorical concepts and the loss of old ones. For example, the Westernization of cultures throughout the word is partly a matter of introducing the TIME IS MONEY metaphor into those cultures.

~ Lakoff & Johnson's Metaphors We Live By  

  This book has provided many insights along the way; but this one is of a different sort, one that talks about cultural change. The illustration is quite apt. Think of the many areas in which English-language speech is dominated by this particular metaphor. Look at how each of the following verbs can be followed by either 'time' or 'money';  spend, invest, waste, have, make, save, take, be worth, borrow, gain, lose, be out of ______. In other words, in English (not necessarily in England or America), time tends to be conceptualized metaphorically as analogous to money in many, many ways. Time is the abstract concept; money is the more concrete daily experience. Yet, what if we had a different dominant metaphor? What if we saw time as a gift or a river or a spring of water? We'd behave differently; we'd think differently. If time is a gift, being late to a meeting because you were giving that gift to someone who needed it more implies no disrespect to the person who had to wait a bit to receive the gift you were bringing to give them. 

  Explaining more, a bit later in chapter 21, Lakoff and Johnson say, "Each culture must provide a more or less successful way of dealing with its environment, both adapting to it and changing it. Moreover, each culture must define a social reality within which people have roles that make sense to them and in terms of which they can function socially. Not surprisingly, the social reality defined by a culture affects its conception of physical reality. What is real for an individual as a member of a culture is a product both of his social reality and of the way in which that shapes his experience of the physical world. Since much of our social reality is understood in metaphorical terms, and since our conception of the physical world is partly metaphorical, metaphor plays a very significant role in determining what is real for us." (all emphasis mine)

Culture's Effect on Theological Development

 In many ways, every generation has the task of reiterating or re-understanding the beliefs they have received for the world they live in. (Indeed, reiteration is not simple repetition.) However, it seems that certain eras may require a greater re-consideration of the expression of a faith than others. Thanks to inter-library loan, I have been reading the fascinating book by Sidney Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. It's been really instructive, and surprisingly readable, regarding the early history of Christian-Muslim interaction. (It reminds me of Jenkins' Lost History of Christianity, with a different focus.)

 Anyways, Griffith describes Theodore bar Koni's 8th century theological-apologetic work Scholion on Christianity which interacted with Islam. In the chapter responding to Muslim challenges, bar Koni addressed "the Scriptures and Christ; Baptism; the Eucharistic mystery; the veneration of the Cross; sacramental practice in general; the Son of God; and, of course, interwoven with all of them, the all-embracing doctrine of the Trinity." (pg 43)

 Griffith continues, "These same issues are the ones that will appear in the topical outlines of almost all of the apologetic tracts written by Christians living among the Muslims for the next five hundred years." Not much has changed in my experience; these topics are mostly still central in Islam's questioning of Christian beliefs.

 But, the next part is what I actually wanted to post; it expressed the generational and contextual call for both thinking and practicing in both old and new ways. "What is evident in the list of them is the obvious intermingling of questions of faith and practice in such a way that it is also clear that the shape of theology itself is determined in this milieu by the apologetic imperative to justify the reasonableness of religious beliefs in virtue of the public practices they entail." (pgs 43-44)

 It seems to me that we also live in a time where new thought and expression is needed to publicly walk in a faith which may seem unreasonable or impious to the reigning worldview.

 ***

Bonus quotation: bar Koni says of his purpose that he is writing "against  those who while professing to accept the Old Testament, and acknowledging the coming of Christ our Lord, are nevertheless far removed from both of them, and now they demand from us an apology [written defense] for our faith, not from all of the scriptures, but only from those which they acknowledge." Griffith summarizes, "Clearly he had the Muslims in mind." (pg 43)

Religious Experience in Christianity and Islam

“I suspect that, save by God’s direct miracle, spiritual experience can never abide introspection.” 

(C. S. Lewis, "Transposition", The Weight of Glory, 82-83)

  This semester I've had the real pleasure of taking a course that has been insightful and refreshing in both the readings and the class time. As a class, we're being guided through Jonathan Edwards, al-Ghazali, and William James - a Puritan Christian, a Sufi Muslim, and a psychologist-philosopher from different centuries - all of whom are deeply concerned about the nature and reality of religious experience. These authors have been supplemented by many others from within those different traditions of thought, and it has been intellectually and spiritually enriching. The course name is "Religious Experience in Christianity and Islam", and it's the first offering from ISRME. 

 As is normal, a great part of the richness of the course is in the fellow students (including Bethany!) and the interaction with the teacher. With a breadth of experience spanning the continents and wide variety of backgrounds and expertises, the class discussion supplements the direct instruction fabulously. What I share below comes from all this richness. 

“That, without being discouraged on account of our sins, we should pray for His grace with a perfect confidence, as relying upon the infinite merits of our LORD JESUS CHRIST.” 

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Kindle Locations 110-111).

Ingrid Mattson's talk on Islamic daily prayer is beautiful and far more relatable than what most Westerners or Protestants might expect of a 'ritual'. It's well worth watching. Personally, I imagine the closest thing many Protestants may have experienced would be congregational singing.

Speaking of singing...

“…the duty of singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music but only, that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections.” (Edwards, Religious Affections, Part 1)

 On the topic of the 'evil eye', compare 1 Samuel 18:8-9 in the NASB or HCSB’s footnotes, plus this link on Biblegateway with Schimmel's comments below about it being in the Kur'an and the hadith.

"The belief in the Evil Eye, which probably belongs among the most ancient concepts in human history, is based, among the Muslims, on Sura 68:51ff., [...] And Bukhari..."

 (Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God, 91)

On the nature of true fellowship and the Lord's Supper...

And in this respect, the Eucharist is just a macrocosm of what the church is called to be as the new humanity: a community that gathers, irrespective of preferences, tastes, class, or ethnicity, in order to pursue a common good. I often tell my children that one of the reasons we go to church is to learn to love people we don’t really like that much—people we find irritating, odd, and who grate on our nerves (the feeling’s certainly mutual, I’m sure!) 

 

[7 pages later] 

 

"[With these friends] We commiserate with one another about the burdens of parenting and share the joys of the same. We’ve mourned together, been frustrated together, worked through tensions with each other, confided in one another. When we were going through struggles “at church,” in our community of gathered worship, this Wednesday night table was a refreshing and welcome “table in the wilderness.” It has been nothing short of a shadow Eucharist, a veritable extension of the Lord’s Supper. "

(James Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, ch 5, bold emphasis added)

 

On marriage and family...

“Thus Schmemann admonishes, “A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’ It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God”

As Schmemann laments, “It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it” (For the Life of the World, 90).” 

(James Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, ch 5, footnotes 71 & 73, bold emphasis added)

 “A Christian cannot do without the imagination because Scripture is full of things beyond our present experience.” 

(Midgley, "Meditating for a Change: Embracing a Lost Art," 27)

 The Bible Project's series on "Spiritual Beings" was really helpful in understanding a more integrated view of the biblical spiritual realm. Their presentation does not present opposing views, but it does a good job setting forth a particular view that is credible. (It also has supporting notes.)

exploring new book-worlds

 As we continue through this unusual time of being at home, I have found myself with unusual mental space for new reading material. When my mind is cluttered by what is going on around or within me, I typically resort to re-reading books I have read with value or enjoyment before. This provides something of an escape and a space for considering daily goings-on from a different perspective.
 These days, however, while I do not necessarily have a lot more time for reading, I have found myself with a less cluttered mind. Thus, I can more easily read from new sources. Today I started David deSilva's book Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. It's been on my wishlist for 2-3 years, but it went on a significant sale, so I decided to sample it (on my Kindle). The sample led me to buy it. There's a lot to consider in it. Some of you may have noted my interest in honor-shame dynamics within both Scripture and culture over the last several years.

   I'm about 10% of the way through the book, and, so far, deSilva has done a good job describing the ancient world and then showing the connections to both the Scriptures and the practical daily contexts of their world and ours. I will include just one quote since most of the other parts that I have appreciated need more context to be meaningful. See if you can hear the resonance with Paul urging the Roman believers to 'outdo one another in showing honor' (see post "The Honor Competition.") 

Hence Isocrates advises his student to “consider it equally disgraceful to be outdone by your enemies in doing injury and to be surpassed by your friends in doing kindness” (Ad Dem. 26), that is, to take pains to win when presented either with negative or positive challenges, so that his honor will remain undiminished.

deSilva, David A.. Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity (p. 31). IVP Academic.

 Anyways, that's one example of some of my new reading. Since the beginning of the year, I've also been reading P. G. Wodehouse's books and short stories that are available free on Kindle. A friend has been recommending them for years, and I finally decided to try them. They've been fun and relaxing, and very different from anything else I read. 

 I'm also borrowing Pearl Buck's The Good Earth from the library currently. We'll see whether or not I can read it before it disappears from my Kindle. If not, it'll have to wait a bit longer, especially if my mind becomes cluttered with other things for any reason... 

Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah

 My favorite living storyteller is Malcolm Gladwell; his books are the only books that my wife and I have consistently listened to together. I am looking forward to listening to his most recent book soon. Recently I listened to an episode from his podcast, Revisionist History. It was fabulous, just like I hoped; Gladwell is basically peerless in his ability to weave a narrative together.

 Due to changes in the way I commute, I have started to listen to stuff on my way home. This was quite rare until the last 18 months and still sporadic until the last several months. Because I am just trying this out, there's a lot of experimentation involved... I've tried audiobooks (Chesterton's Orthodoxy has been fantastic so far), podcasts, and lectures (English in America: A Linguistic History by Natalie Schilling was very informative, especially as an English teacher).

 Anyways, this episode of Revisionist History "Chutzpah vs. Chutzpah"was fantastic. It included the mafia and The Godfather, which I've never seen, but which my students assure me is the greatest movie ever made. It included Hogan's Heroes which our family secretly enjoys, while hoping it doesn't offend our German friends! It included a wonderfully winding story about the meaning(s) of 'chutzpah' practically (There is some inappropriate language from an interviewee.) It includes discussions of shame and shamelessness, Abraham's intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, cross-cultural differences and acculturation, immigration, and more!

 It also includes insight on modern culture, particularly American culture. Online and from a distance, I see increasing acknowledgement that the brokenness in American politics reflects the society, not causes the society's polarization. This episode essentially avoids the specifics in order to deal with the larger picture. The question it suggests  is "Have we confused [America's] chutzpah with [Israel's] chutzpah?"

All in all, this episode touches on a ton of areas that are important to me! I highly recommend it!

PS Even the ads are interesting and informative since even they are interviews done by Gladwell with business executives.

Interviewing: Story-hearing

  My current class for the MA in Teaching English that I am working on right now is about intercultural communication and its relevance in the English-language classroom. So, we are learning about interviewing to hear - really hear - culture. This is particularly interesting to me as I assigned a class of students to do interviews a few weeks ago. I wish I had had some of these resources to share with them then.

  Below are some comments by the late Greg Sharrow of the Vermont Folklife Center from an article called, "The Art of Interviewing."

...how can you know for sure what it is like to stand in someone else's shoes-until you ask? And when you ask, it is quite likely that your understanding of the world and the people in it will expand.

If, for example, you want to learn about a culture and the lives of people who share this culture, your challenge as a researcher is to understand that experience from an insider's point of view. [...] That means that whether something makes sense to you-or even strikes you as just plain wrong-is irrelevant.

Good questions are an important tool, certainly, but the outcome of an interview will ultimately depend on how well you draw a person out and empower them to show you the shape of their world as they know it. 

...your role as an active listener will shape the experience even more than the specific questions that you ask.

(emphases mine) 

 Some of Sharrow's comments on his approach reminded me of the approach that Malcolm Gladwell says he uses.

A "we" as big as humanity

  Since I am studying in proximity to a good library right now, I am also trying to examine some of the books that I have had on my 'wishlist' for a while and see how good they really are. In Lustig and Koester's Intercultural Competence, I found this nugget which relates directly to the need I constantly see for us to meet and be in relationship with those we fear or reject, whether our fears are cultural, economic/vocational, religious, or martial. It is difficult for us to love 'them' - whoever 'they' might be - without meaningful relationship.

The casual we for most of us does not include the 50 percent hungry, the 60 percent in shantytowns, and the 70 percent illiterate. Most of us construct our we without including them. Thinking of the world close up, as if it was a village of one thousand people, forces us to confront what we mean when we say "we." ...

How often does our we come to include people of other faiths, other nations, other races? How often does our we link rather than divide? Our relation with the "other" may move, as Smith puts it, through a number of phases. First we talk about them - an objective "other." Then perhaps we talk to them, or more personally, we talk to you. Developing a real dialogue, we talk with you. And finally, we all talk with one another about us, all of us. This is the crucial stage to which our... dialogue must take us if we are to be up to the task of creating communication adequate for an interdependent world. 

- Diana L. Eck, as quoted in Lustig's Intercultural Competence, pg 5 (italics original)

If the world were a thousand-person village... (2001 stats; ibid., 4)

Consumerism, Zen, and this TCK

 Ewa Hoffman's Lost in Translation is assigned reading for my MA class; overall, it is excellent, but Part 2 "Exile" has been especially poignant to me, as a TCK who rejected the torturing consumerism of American culture when he was ten. (Technically, the author is a CCK, cross-cultural kid, not a third culture kid, but that's beside the point.)

 She also describes many of the feelings of lostness within and disengagement from a culture graphically. Yet, it was at the point where she began describing her response to materialism that the book really grabbed me. I don't recall having read anything so near to my own feelings about materialism. Finally, she speaks of being alone in a dorm over the holidays in a way that vividly recaptured that experience for me.

Concerning Her Reponse to Materialism and Consumerism:

  After battering myself again and again on the horns of lust and disgust, I begin to retreat from both. I decide to stop wanting. For me, this is a strange turn: my appetites are strong, and I never had any ambitions to mortify them by asceticism. But this new resolution is built into the logic of my situation. Since I can’t have anything, if I were to continue wanting, there would be no end to my deprivation. It would be constant, like a never-ending low-level toothache. I can’t afford such a toothache; I can’t afford to want. Like some sybarite turned monk who proves his mettle by placing himself in seductive situations, I can now walk between taffeta dresses and silk lingerie without feeling a shred of temptation. I‘ve become immune to desire; I snip the danger of wanting in the bud.   By the same sleight of consciousness, I’m becoming immune to envy. If I were to give vent to envying, there would be no end to that either. I would have to envy everybody, every moment of the day. But with my new detachment, I can gaze at what my friends have as if they lived in a different world. In this spatial warp in which I have situated myself, it doesn’t make any difference that they live in big houses with large yards and swimming pools, and cars and many skirts and blouses and pairs of shoes. This way, I can be nice to my friends; I can smile pleasantly at their pleasures and sympathize with their problems of the good life. I can do so, because I’ve made myself untouchable. Of course, they might be upset if they guessed the extent of my indifference; but they don’t.

[...]

 In my lush Western Sahara, I’m confronting a tantalizing abundance that doesn’t fill, and a loneliness that carves out a scoop of dizzying emptiness inside.

Concerning Eastern religions in American culture:

Two decades later, when the Eastern religions vogue hits the counterculture, I think I understand the all-American despair that drives the new converts to chant their mantras in ashrams from San Francisco to Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The gospel of detachment is as well suited to a culture of excess as it is to a society of radical poverty. It thrives in circumstances in which one’s wants are dangerous because they are surely going to be deprived – or because they are pulled in so many directions that they pose a threat to the integrity, the unity of one’s self.

[...]

...America is the land of yearning, and perhaps nowhere else are one’s desires so wantonly stimulated...

Concerning lonely breaks:

...in my nearly empty dorm during a holiday break, I forget my ascetic techniques, and the desire for the comfort of being a recognizable somebody placed on a recognizable social map breaks in on me with such anguishing force that it scalds my spirit and beats it back into its hiding place.

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (pp. 136-140). Plunkett Lake Press. Kindle Edition. (Emphases added.)

Human Culture as Human Environment

Disregarding certain aspects, I found the main idea of this excerpt from Patricia Crone's Pre-Industrial Societies quite useful. This is from the beginning of the chapter entitled 'Culture.'

[Animals'] genetic programme might well have been unsuited for the [hypothetical] island, in which they would have risked dying out; but the only, or almost only, way they could have adapted themselves would have been by natural selection. The human animal is of course genetically programmed too. However, its programme for social organization is deficient (and to some extent even counter-productive). The programme does little but instruct its bearer to learn, or in other words to acquire culture with which to supplement (and in some cases even to suppress) such specific instructions as it retains. Without doing so, the species simply could not survive; doing so, it can survive almost anywhere on earth and even, for limited periods, outside it. Culture is thus the species-specific environment of Homo sapiens. Living in accordance with nature is an attractive idea, but in the human case it actually looks like living with culture.

(bold mine)

Dreaming in English - a Turkish author's ponderings on writing in English

 At the end of print copies of her novels, Turkish author Elif Shafak has a short piece on why she writes novels in English; it's called "Dreaming in English." She has a slightly adjusted version of this piece posted on the English Pen. It is beautiful and well worth the read, especially if you are interested in the lives of global nomads and TCKs. Shafak expresses that sense which children of multiple cultures may have of being able to be true to each of their cultures in various ways, without betraying or abandoning any of them. She expresses the sense of belonging and connecting and loving, indeed, the sense of identity, which is felt deeply and yet somehow at a distance. I'd love to have posted the whole thing, but I'll leave these tidbits, with the hope that you will go read the whole thing for yourself (here, emphases mine).

I never thought I had to make a choice between my two loved ones: English and Turkish. In truth, perhaps even more than writing in English or writing in Turkish, it is the very commute back and forth that fascinates me to this day. I pay extra attention to those words that cannot be ferried from one continent to the other. I become more aware of not only meanings and nuances but also of gaps and silences. And I observe myself and others. Our voices change, even our body language alters as we move from one language to another. At the end of the day, languages shape us while we are busy thinking we control them.

Sometimes, the presence of absence strengthens a bond and distance brings you closer.

Rather than a pre-given, fixed, monolithic identity, we can have multiple and fluid belongings. We can even love more than one person. Our hearts are wide and deep enough to do so. And yes, we can also dream in more than one language.

 Incidentally, for reasons she hints at in the article, Shafak is often not well regarded here in Turkey. Unfortunately, the reasons for that here (as with other authors in their own homelands) are political rather than literary. I am interested, however, in the experience she is expressing - not in either the literature itself or the politics thereof.

Understanding, Attacks, and Faith

 Often I wish that I could improve understanding between the cultures that I have lived in and love. My life has been spent mostly among three vastly different cultures, with a number of smaller variations or visits. Cultures do not easily or naturally understand each other. More accurately, people do not desire to listen to those whom it will be difficult to understand or who are easier to 'wonder about.' Here is an article from a Turkish newspaper that expresses commonly-held thoughts from the media here; at the center it says, "Attacks on Muslims at 2,800 separate points." It then goes on to list attacks in Canada, the USA, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Greece.

 Do you feel threatened by those of a different religion or culture than you? Maybe they are just as scared of you. Have you met them or talked to them? Have you prayed for them or welcomed them to your neighborhood? Have you made sure they know you are a safe person for them? Are you a safe person for them?

"A Balance Sheet of Islamophobic Attacks in the West"
"(2016 - Jan. 2017 Data)"

 A day after that article came out, this article was published in a Turkish English-language daily, concerning the difficulties faced by Christians (particularly Turkish nationals) in this country. This is the other side of the same coin, and none of this is new. Or, in an unrelated country and demographic, here is another article: this one is about anti-Semitism in Britain.

 This is the world we live in: fear is easier; violence is real; our impact feels impossibly small. But, in whatever country or culture we live in, at least for Christians, we are to supersede politics - whether we agree or disagree; we are to overcome fear with love - whether it is safe or not; we are to enter the realities of others' fear and darkness (and hopes and dreams and joys!) - whether we find it comfortable or not. Whenever I hear someone fearing and judging someone from a different culture or background, I always want to know if they have at least one friend whom they love from that background. It makes a difference! A few years ago, I had two friends who are atheists tell me that they would come be with me (as a Christian) if I ever felt threatened. That meant a lot, a whole lot.

The reason to be progressive

Below is a quote from Chesterton which I find fascinating, granted some difference between the contexts for the terms 'conservative' and 'progressive,' the ideas should still be quite similar and therefore worth considering.

We have remarked that one reason offered for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow better. But the only real reason for being a progressive is that things naturally tend to grow worse. The corruption in things is not only the best argument for being progressive; it is also the only argument against being conservative. The conservative theory would really be quite sweeping and unanswerable if it were not for this one fact. But all conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. (Orthodoxy, emphases mine)

In other words, politically we can either believe in a Golden Age of perfect justice and righteousness in the past to which we must return, or we must seek a truer future. Was there a perfect society in the 1770s or 1780s or 1860s or 1940s or 1980s, or in looking towards the future should we also release much of the past? Anyways, while it is certainly not expressed here as a complete political theory, it is an interesting thought.

Turkey Unveiled - a history

  I just finished reading Nicole and Hugh Pope's Turkey Unveiled; and as a history of republican Turkey it is quite informative. Not only is the book very readable, it has about it a sense of Turkey and Turkish thought, including using key Turkish words to highlight important cultural values. One of the beauties of the book is that it expresses a deep understanding of Turkish culture that is understandable to those from a Western culture at the same. A sample quote:

...Turkey is in a category all its own. One reason for the West's difficulty in coming to grips with the country is that Turkey was never colonized and has never truly shared its history with one of the great European cultures.

Reflections from my time in Africa

 My recent trip to Senegal and Gambia flooded me with many new, and old, experiences and gave me many potential ponderings for deeper learning and understanding.  At some level, it might be interesting to talk about the surface experiences that were so similar to my childhood in Suriname - crossing rivers by ferry, tropical architecture, delicious mangos and bananas, and even the same cookies, at times.  (In fact, they even had Zwan... in the little cans!)

Ferry Crossing to Banjul

 Then, there were the abnormal experiences that I got to have: seeing a canon from 1895 still guarding a river crossing, being on national (Gambian) tv and in the papers, drinking water out of bag, seeing the sky turn orange from the dust of the Sahara, etc.  But simply mentioning those and giving a few pictures, probably fulfills their usefulness in my life narrative.  

Sahara in the Sky

Bag of drinking water

Canon at the Saloum River crossing in Senegal

Back end of the canon, marked 1895

 But, especially in light of current social topics in the USA, another point has caused me to ponder: the constant awareness of difference, created by skin tone. Often being white felt like a liability - particularly when it facilitated 'economic selection' towards us (higher prices). Yet the fact of the matter is that at the end of day, no matter how tight our budget was, it was able to deal with those prices. The disadvantage to us was minimal, though not marginal. But more disturbing than those higher prices was the fact that I was associated with a culture which is seen to be reaching over the globe and, intentionally or not, displacing older cultures and stirring trouble between the traditional and the modern - between values and self-gratification, morals and utility. Being automatically identified with this hegemony-grasping culture was far more troubling.

 With great honesty, a group of students dramatized for us the struggles they each face as they decide whether to follow older ways or not, to live within or abandon the morals and beliefs that have bound their cultures together for generations, or to respect or reject their elders. And the villain in the drama is a culture - maybe not a person or country per se, but a culture or system of thought that drifts in from the West and is most naturally identified with my country of birth.  So, now, simply because of skin tone, I am associated with a system which I largely reject.    

 What if these points had stretched on from 2-3 weeks into generations - different treatment, wrong assumptions? What if our ability to deal with the higher prices were stripped away, and we had to live more expensively simply because of who we are?  What if we were not honored guests of respected citizens? What then? Who would have spoken for us? Who would have cared for what we had to offer? Who would have listened to us?   

a view in Bakau, Gambia

Cynicism concerning victories and light bulbs

  It is a statement on the disfunction of the Republican Party and its tactics that in the $1+ trillion spending bill, issues that they claim to have won are as follows:

1.  Incandescent light bulbs can still be manufactured. [This seems to be both a symbolic and a pyrrhic victory given that there replacements would save everybody money (except, possibly, electricity producers), and this is a rather innocent and insignificant case of government meddling. I agree that none of us like meddling, but...] [I suppose that all "natural market-weeding-out" is good, as when Bernie Madoff's clients were weeded out of the market for being inefficient? Truly regulations are inherently evil.]

"The light bulb issue has been an ongoing battle for Republicans, who argued that if incandescent bulbs are inefficient, the market will weed them out naturally without government pressure.

2. A ban on DC using local tax money to fund abortions. [I agree with the principle, but will it actually change anyone's life? Truly, I'm asking a question.]

3. Limit on federal agencies' spending on conferences. [Good! Glad someone did this finally.]

4. Halting new funding for the IMF and UNESCO. [Two more empty 'victories' that neither advance America's interests abroad, nor help the human race.  However, for the anti-World club, they are definitely a win, since it will allow other nations to be influential in areas where America will no longer be as involved... like global education, science, and culture!]

Other battles Republicans said they won include continuing a ban on the District of Columbia using its local taxpayers’ money to fund abortions; limits on federal agencies’ spending on conferences; and halting new funding for the International Monetary Fund and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization." (Source: Washington Times)

 Where'd the Republicans lose any real bargaining power? Probably in the government shutdown that made them even more deeply unpopular than Congress generally, or in the 5 years of saying that all compromise was bad [Isn't this a republic representing everyone's interests theoretically?], or...

 Now that I'm probably in trouble with all my friends, I shall step aside, realizing that this post will be obsolete in every way in the immediate future. 

Top Recommendations from 2013

  This year, my life has been more obviously structured to learn and increase both knowledge and understanding; thus, I've read more on a variety of fronts.  I will recommend some of those books below; but first, a word about why I rarely add disclaimers to my recommendations: if you find something that you disagree with in a book, it is proof that your mind is engaged.  If I recommend a book, it is because I think the author has presented 'something' well from 'some' perspective.  In other words, I assume we all know that authors are neither omniscient nor inspired.  Thus, I hope all of us can critique something in any book we read.

The Lost History of Christianity (John Philip Jenkins) - This book is very appropriately named; it is also well-written and engagingly presented. The author is balanced in many areas where balance is difficult to maintain. It covers an area of Christian history that I've never heard dealt with properly, particularly the Asian and African churches which comprised up to 50% of the Church for many centuries. (My blog post about this book.)

Honor & Shame (my related blog post) - Several friends and I have spent much of this year digesting the meaning of Honor and Shame together; it is excellent and applies to a postmodern culture nearly as much as to an Asian one. (Shame Interrupted - is a more pastoral look at dealing with shame, while Redeeming Love is an excellent novel which explores the topic well.)

From Foreign to Familiar - A short, useful book about culture and adapting!

Mother of Wolves - This was an excellent novel which I got free on Kindle and was happily impressed by both the unusual setting and development of the plot! (Honorable Mention: In Search of Castaways - a prequel to Jules Verne's classic The Mysterious Island [free on Kindle])

Once There Was, Twice There Wasn't (Michael Shelton) - A book of classic Turkish fairy tales are retold for the delight and instruction of children or adults. A few of the stories were familiar to me from childhood, but most were new. Nasreddin Hoca would have appreciated Aesop, Brer Rabbit and Anansi.

The Corsair King (Mor Jokai) - Good historical fiction, much of this older author's work is available free.  This particular work is based on the same figure as "The Dread Pirate Roberts" in The Princess Bride! [free on Kindle]

Teaching English to Young Learners - This book by David Nunan has been a tremendous help with ideas and instruction, as I've tried to become a better teacher.

The Three Little Tamales - Easily wins best kid's book of the year as the final tamale outsmarts Senor Lobo.

Muhteşem Yüzyıl is my favorite soundtrack from the year, with Crayola Doesn't  Make a Color for your Eyes and Song of the Lonely Mountain being favorite individual songs, while the Piano Guys are the addictively good artists that I began really loving this year.

Previous Lists:
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM 2011
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM 2012

Beauty in Place

Do I see both the beauty and the potential beauty in the place and among the people where I have been put?

Do I watch for, embrace, and support the image of God here no matter how different it might be from my expectations?

Do I seek to grow to resemble His beauty as reflected here, or do I just see different? 

Honor, Shame, and Slanting Theology

  In my 'Top Recommendations from 2012,' I listed The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross as my most thought-provoking book from last year.  It continues to challenge my thinking in a variety of areas, including getting me to read a book called 'Honor and Shame' by Roland Muller (also in  The Messenger, the Message, and the Community.)  This book deals with the topics of guilt-, fear- and shame-based cultures in relation to the Scriptures; most importantly it calls us to see the good news of Christ fully as it speaks to every person's guiltiness, fearfulness and shamefulness before the King and Judge of the universe.

  Most of us who were trained in a Western theological system were not taught to deal theologically with the Gospel outside of a guilt-justification context.  Thus, when people don't feel guilty before God, for instance in an Islamic (shame-based) or animistic (fear-based) culture, we struggle to bring the good news of salvation and true life to them.  Many of us have never felt particularly shamed or dirty before God, simply guilty; or maybe, we've never wondered if the spiritual forces which attack us are stronger than those which defend us.  In either case, the Gospel speaks thoroughly to these issues, as well, of course, as addressing our guiltiness.  And we do want a fully displayed Gospel!

A Tree Leaning on a Graveyard Fence

  This tree, which I walk by daily, reminds me of the dangers of an unbalanced and slanted theology: if the tree were not propped up by the fence, this tree would likely have fallen over long ago.  It seems like the tree lacked even sunlight and therefore grew dangerously.  I hope our theology is not as badly slanted as it feels, but from where I am, it certainly feels as badly slanted as the tree.  The problem is not what has grown; the problem is what hasn't!  

 The Old Testament has tons to say about God's purifying and exalting salvation to a shame-based culture where people feel polluted and unclean before God, but I am just beginning to see much of it for the first time.  The Gospel accounts are similarly filled with Jesus stepping into shamed and outcast peoples' lives and raising them to honor in salvation.  First Peter is another good place to go to consider these Gospel themes.  

 It is in that context that Zephaniah 3:11-12, 18-20 has given me great encouragement. Notice the parts I've bolded which speak directly to this great salvation!

“On that day you shall not be put to shame

because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me;

for then I will remove from your midst

your proudly exultant ones,

and you shall no longer be haughty

in my holy mountain.

But I will leave in your midst

a people humble and lowly.

They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord

I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival,

so that you will no longer suffer reproach. ...

Behold, at that time I will deal

with all your oppressors.

And I will save the lame

and gather the outcast,

and I will change their shame into praise

and renown in all the earth.

At that time I will bring you in,

at the time when I gather you together;

for I will make you renowned and praised

among all the peoples of the earth,

when I restore your fortunes

before your eyes,” says the Lord.

Eternal Life: The River and the Banks

  At our church gathering yesterday, the 'sharing,' as it is called, was from the book of John, particularly 17:3 and chapter 4, What is Eternal Life?  Eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent.  In the last week, a couple of things have caused us to consider again the basic-ness of the call to Christ in exclusion to everything else.

  The main sermon illustration went something like this (originally in Turkish): Eternal Life is a river with two banks.  One bank is the things that Christians may do; the other bank is things Christians may not do.  These commands and 'forbiddens' are not part of eternal life though they are related to it. If there were no banks, the River would be harder to notice, but it certainly wouldn't disappear.

  This Life is Jesus and relationship with Him and the Father; this is why the Gospel of John tells us that we can have eternal life now. Yet so often, we confuse the (important, but) muddy banks for the (all-important) River.   Thus, this week we watched as our Facebook newsfeed exploded with people on both sides of a discussion (yelling, about music) again.  I wouldn't suggest that music is unimportant, and I certainly have an opinion on the issue, but there seemed to be some level of forgetting that we should all be in the River together, even when we disagree.  See, the fascinating thing about being in the River is that the River is most important.  Meanwhile, the key issue for anyone on the Bank of Doing or the Bank of Not Doing is 'my opinion,' 'my holiness,' or 'my rightness.'  And the frightening thing about this is that I can know it, write about it, and still sit on a Bank, not living my life in the River.

Niagara Falls - Fall 2012

   Two more pointed conversations also happened last week; in both of them I got asked if I were a Muslim. As I talked to a taxi driver and he wondered why we moved to Istanbul, he asked, "Did you convert?" Well, no, I'm a Christian. From there we continued to talk and share. A couple days later, in an English class discussion, I was asked if I drank alcohol or smoked. When I said no, the next question was, "Are you a Muslim?"  Again, the conversation continued. If things like my location or what I ingest are the core of my religion, I am in desperate need of the River of Eternal Life.

  But it's not quite this simple.  A couple years ago,  I learned something with abrupt force when I read The Mystics of Islam. The mystical Sufi denomination of Islam has some of the most 'Bible' ideas of any  group I've ever studied, yet they lack Christ.  I was struck as I read Sufi writings how much they sounded like A. W. Tozer and other great Christian writers of the past.  They believe in deep, loving relationship with God; they have a passionate pursuit of knowing Him, but Jesus is absent (except as a great prophet.)  How?

  More importantly, how is my religion different?  Is my 'religion' of such a sort that I can be holy enough, love God enough, pursue the knowledge of His greatness deeply or long enough?  Or, am I desperately thirsty for the River?  Certainly those who drink of the River stay between the banks. However, the banks do not define them; the River does!  May I be graced and galvanized to live only in the River, staying off the banks!

Cottica River - 2011

Frustration vs. Anger: a cultural excuse for sin

Yesterday, I was reminded of a significant difference between Turkish and American culture.  The Turkish language doesn't have a word with the basic meaning of 'being frustrated,' as it is used in daily modern English.  When I lived with a Turkish family several years ago, if I got 'frustrated,' they sometimes commented that I was 'angry.'  I tried to explain why I was 'just frustrated' and not angry; it didn't work.  So, for the past several years I have pondered off and on about the nature of frustration, and I have come to the conclusion that they are right: what I call frustration is anger.

Last night I was spending time with those same friends, trying to help them work through a cross-cultural, cross-Atlantic business issue.  Everything went wrong, and I got frustrated.  In older English, I might say, 'My expectations/plans were being frustrated'; that is, my plans were being thwarted.  In more modern English, we say, 'I am frustrated'; that is, I am reacting negatively to the thwarting of my plans.  In other words, I am responding to adversity with negative passionate emotion... sounds like anger.

If I argue that I was simply frustrated, not really angry, I am not really dealing with my heart, I am dealing with my actions.  We tend to say 'frustrated' when we are keeping it inside and are externally calm and reasonable; 'anger' starts with the yelling.  So, we have excused our sin (frustration) by saying that anger is controlled and undeveloped. May God continue to change my heart and yours through His Word and His Spirit, so that this does not continue!

Why does 'frustration' not get preached on if it is truly a sin?

This seems to be a classic case of a cultural blind spot which is not easily seen because of the distance between our culture and the ones through which we received God's Word. Like Turkish, biblical cultures may not have distinguished 'frustration' from 'anger.'  I've also wondered if there is a possibility of the near synonyms of 'anger' and 'wrath' being similar to the distinction we make.  Here's the biblical data as far as I can tell which answers the question why I don't remember any sermons on frustration.

In the KJV, NKJV, ESV, and NIV (2011), 'frustrate' occurs less than a dozen times never meaning 'controlled anger,' always with its older meaning of 'to thwart,' as of a plan or objective, not a person.

In the NASB, HCSB and NIV (1984), it occurs once with the modern 'mild anger' meaning (2 Sam 13:2).  (The HSBC has an additional possibility in Job 6:20, but that also seems to clearly have the 'thwart' meaning.)