sacred journeys

I have a friend Chad who is traveling to Haiti next week to connect with an orphanage down there, and to start up a partnership with this children’s home and with his church up in Minneapolis — The Urban Refuge. This church is one of the group of churches, that my old church (The Rock) — was also a part of. Anyway, it reminded me of a the book that I am currently reading for a class that I am in. The book is called Strange Virtue: Ethics in a multicultural world

It is probably most directed to missionaries, but anyone can read it and get a ton out of it I think. The author (Adeney) makes the comment that “…one of the benefits of entering another culture is the perspective it gives you on your own culture. Of course it is all too possible to absolutize your own culture and judge everything from its perspective.”

As a missionary — I am constantly rubbing shoulders with other cultures, and it is so easy to judge everything about other cultures — based on my experience. The author goes on to say that this is “…not done consciously. An absolutized culture is not even recognized. It is simply taken to be the perspective of truth and goodness.”

Before we can touch and influence people of other cultures, we must truly understand their culture and not simply judge it from a distance…

“Therefore, the great gift that the members of the human race have for each is not exotic experiences, but an opportunity to achieve awareness of the structure of their own system, which can be accomplished only by interacting with others, who do not share that system.”