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.)

Understanding, Listening to each other, and Knowing

 I will be posting tidbits from my grad school reading here. Much of the recent stuff doesn't relate directly to teaching; it relates to humanity and learning. The chapter mentioned below by Curran was particularly good.

The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become - and such lucidity is a form of joy. 

Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation

The preservation of the self-image is the first law of psychological survival. Therefore, in any social encounter each person exposes for public scrutiny and public testing - and possibly for intolerable undermining - the one thing he needs most, which is the self-perception that he has so laboriously fashioned. This mean that the stakes in any social encounter are incredibly high. No such encounter, therefore, can be merely routine.

- Earl Stevick, "A View of the Learner" (emphasis added)

This is a common major or minor tragedy of the human condition: two people meet each other, both seeking to be understood, and neither of them are able or willing to make the effort to understand. This could be like two performers in a circus trapeze act - both expecting to be caught and no one catching. One can almost feel the pain as they crash into one another after both have leaped off the trapeze. 

(...)

Consequently understanding between people cannot be presumed, even though it is a basic need of us all. That is why it is necessarily an acquired skill. To assume it, as many do, is to mislead oneself. In the assumption, one can be in the narcissistic bind of presuming one is a very "understanding" person when one has, in reality, never left oneself and one's own world. Others seldom tell us this even when everyone around us knows it. We can therefore remain in a self-deception trap. 

- Charles Curran, Understanding: An Essential Ingredient in Human Belonging (emphasis added)

Struggle - Together

 Some of you may know, and others may not, that I have started an MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). A reading this week resonated deeply with me, not simply as a student or teacher, but also as a person and as a follower of Christ. The article was by Leahy and Gilly and was entitled, "Learning in the Space between Us." It's available on JSTOR if you care to go peruse it; it's excellent. The subject is Collaborative, Transformative Learning - education towards change, together. Here are some excerpts:

[Parker] Palmer said, after all, "there is no knowing without conflict."

Commitment to "together" means that persons are welcome to bring body, mind, heart, and soul; their skills, ideas, and learning styles; and both endearing and maddening idiosyncrasies. ... Cultivate the intent to include as if to say to others: do not withhold yourself; allow us to come to know you; engage with your whole self; let us value and use our diversity.

It was our commitment to "together" that oddly enough was both source of and solution for the tension. It was not an option to win the argument by dismissing the other. Ultimately, even when exasperated, we each chose to honor not only the commitment to struggle but also the commitment to "together." We were committed to producing things; our conversations were not intellectual speculation, however, getting something done never trumped "struggle" and "together."

(emphases mine)

 That last seems to me to be great marriage advice as well. I cannot say that I have 'learned' it, but as we celebrate 8 years of marriage, it makes a lot of sense to me in many, many ways.

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)

A Biblical Theology of Blessing in Genesis

 I have been studying blessing in the book of Genesis for a number of years, particularly concentrating on it for a two-year period around 2010. I experimented with writing my research into an article several times, but it never came together. Last summer, I decided to try to actually get the article written as a means of getting back into academic thought patterns as I start a master's in TESOL this summer.

 I submitted it to Themelios, and today it was published as "A Biblical Theology of Blessing in Genesis."

 I would be remiss not to mention the impact of one teacher on this whole project: without Dr. Horn, I almost certainly would never have studied, written or submitted this for publication. Dr. Horn told our class regularly to write and to submit our best work for publication, and he'd occasionally mark what our best work was. He said it often enough that I finally believed he was serious. Beyond that, he fostered my love for Genesis in one class, taught me what biblical theology was in another class, and provoked my interest in the meaning of 'blessing' in a sermon. I have truly been blessed by his impact on my life and my learning.

**A couple of previous posts that stemmed from this same study: Divine Blessing and Food; The Broken Ugly, a poem.

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.

Christ honoring God in the Atonement

 I'm reading a recently-released book, Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement, by Brandon Crawford. While I haven't gotten to the main part on Edwards yet, several nuggets have stood out in the historical overview, particularly from the pre-Reformation period. I thought I'd post them as it is the week when we particularly recall Christ's work of atonement. These quotes derive from the thoughts of Athanasius and Anselm, and these particular ones emphasize the work of Christ in relation to God's honor and the shame brought by sin.

“He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God entered our world.”

(quote from Athanasius) 

Sin dishonors God because it belittles his glory; it declares that God is not the kind of being who deserves loving obedience. For this reason, the penalty of God’s law—death—must be carried out. God would dishonor himself if he ignored the demands of his own law and allowed men’s sins to go unpunished. By sending his Son to pay sin’s price for men, God upheld his own honor, answered the demands of his law, and made it possible for sinners to have life.

(summary of Athanasius' theology of the atonement)

On the other hand, “the man who does not render to God this honour, which is His due takes away from God what is His own, and dishonours God.” This, Anselm argues, is the essence of sin. It is failing (or refusing) to give the entire self to God in wholehearted worship and obedience. And sin demands “satisfaction.” Making satisfaction for sin means not only restoring what was wrongfully taken, but also giving back above and beyond what was taken—for only then is the honor of the offended one truly restored, Anselm says.

(emphasis mine)

 Each of these sections are well said, but the final highlighted sentence is a fresh thought for me, at least phrased in this way. Christ was not only restoring or repaying God's honor, he was increasing it!  

Grief and Songs, as strangers

 Recently, I have been spending a good bit of time meditating on the question posed in the middle of Psalm 137, both from that psalm and from the book of Daniel: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" Having lost everything, having been taken into exile, and having arrived at the place to where the they were being forced, the question is being raised. The ones who murdered the exiles' children, raped the women, destroyed and desecrated the temple, and burned their city are requiring that they songs of Zion: the grief is fresh, "Is it even possible to sing the LORD's songs here, after all that?"

 It seems to me that Psalm 137 gives two answers, while Daniel suggests a few more which I may post about later. Psalm 137's two solutions are both 'remember': the exiles must not forget where they came from - remember their origin, their God-given home. If they do that, then the songs of Zion may still be sung. The second solution is that the LORD Himself is to remember the injustices enacted upon them, those who gloried in their being massacred. These solutions are understandable for those who believe in the Psalms today, too.

 It has been said that our modern culture does not mourn or grieve well. That makes me wonder if that is why the themes in this song seem difficult to find put to music in English well. Here's a variety of audio versions of the psalm:

This may be the nicest of the Christian versions of it that I found. It's biggest downside is that it doesn't stick directly to the words of the psalm .

This Anglican chant solves that problem, but the style is a bit difficult for me.

Here's a Yiddish rendition, which seems to carry the tone well though obviously I can't understand it.

This Rastafarian version is catchy, but it only catches part of the psalm - and I'm not clear enough on the Melodians's cultures to know whether this is a style of grief: it seems quite possible.

Details from museums across Istanbul

  An advantage of having visiting friends is the chance to learn by visiting museums. While I had been to parts of the museums below before, there is always more to see and learn. A few tidbits...

an arrowhead from Israel, authenticated as being 'from the time of the Judges'
(in the Istanbul Military Museum)

fish symbol (in similar spots, images of crosses had been removed)
(in the Hagia Sofia)

figures from Mesopotamia - one appears to be a winged unicorn, a similar relief was from the Babylonian Ishtar Gate.
Does pegasus cross with unicorn in ancient mythology as well as modern children's play?
(in the Ancient Orient Museum in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums)

an altar
(in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum)

another perspective on the altar

The 'wall of partition' beyond which Gentiles were not allowed to enter the Jewish temple. It is believed to be from Herod's temple.
(at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums)

The Turkish would be better translated 'no foreigner' instead of 'no intruder', as is confirmed elsewhere online: "No foreigner is allowed in the courtyard and within the wall surrounding the temple. Whoever enters will invite death for himself."
(at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums)

An item of interest which I didn't take a picture of is the Siloam Inscription (pictured here) which describes the conduit that Hezekiah had built as mentioned in 2 Kings 20:20. This is apparently one of the earliest extant Hebrew inscriptions.

Caltrops - historically used to stop calvary charges; here apparently used against infantry
(in the Istanbul Military Museum)

a daffodil, with a snail inside
(between Gulhane Park and the Archaelogical Museum)