My Hope

We grew up in an innocence/guilt society but we’re now living and working around people who primarily grew up in honor/shame societies. There is no right or wrong, all three structures are addressed in the Bible, but it takes some adjusting. I’ve had some social and cultural blunders in our short time here. First and foremost, what’s the difference? What motivates you to do what is right? Do you get a ‘guilty conscience’ if you’re breaking the rules? Tommy always laughs at me for seeing the world in black and white- it’s right or it’s wrong, there isn’t much grey. I’m a work in progress- what can I say. I’m a rule follower and feel guilty if I break a rule- even if no one else knows (or cares for that matter). Our justice system centers around the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty. American churches focus the gospel message on the cleansing power of Jesus’ blood- bringing innocence and washing us white as snow (which in itself is humorous as this w...

I went to a new grocery store yesterday. The rules are different there though and no one warned me. You have to deposit a quarter to get a cart and there were no bags. I was blindsided and hadn’t brought my own this time. It wasn’t too big of a deal until I got home and didn’t want some of my neighbors to be offended by the ham I was bringing in, so I quickly bagged everything up to haul ten feet to our door. It’s easy to be thrown off when the rules are suddenly different, even in our own culture. I expected different social rules when we moved out west and when I’ve visited people here from different places, but I expected the rules of a grocery store to be fairly standard (except of course in states that are banning plastic bags across all stores). How much harder must it be when the rules everywhere are new and different? Do our rules intimidate in churches too? I overheard one person sharing how she went to a new church and realized she wasn’t taking communion the ‘ri...