When I was in college, I wrote my senior paper on the idea of Devolution in Anthropological thinking. This did not go over well with my professors who did not agree with my central tenet that those of us in the West tend to think that our culture is the "highest" on the evolutionary rung. They thought that my paper implied a very Darwinian sort of evolution model to anthropological research, and that there was no right or wrong way to look at culture. I mention this not to debate the merits of my paper, especially since the paper was little more than an outline of an idea, but to say that this idea has stuck with me for years and its implications have shaped my life.
The basic theory goes something like this. If you buy into the idea that the Western World is the culture that works best, then you buy into all the cultural things associated with that. That THIS (look around you) is the norm. And that people wandering like nomads in Africa or living in what we would consider squalor in Borneo is not the norm, or not desirable. I further suggested that the world has been going downhill ever since we left the forests and hunting grounds of our nomadic forebears for the cities and supermarkets of today. Like I said, it was more of a sketch than anything else.
I was reminded of this thought last night while watching the first half of the incredible documentary, "God Grew Tired Of Us." This documentary follows the lives of three Sudanese Lost Boys from the time they had to flee Sudan, their ten years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and finally their acceptance into the United States of America in order to work and make a living. I found myself in tears at the description of their horrible young lives, and also in tears as the boys first encountered the United States and its complex culture. It wasn't condemning in any way, but certainly an incredible way to throw up a mirror on our society and to allow us to see this country through the eyes of others.
And again, this morning, I was reminded of this thought in relation to some news I received. I know people are going through hard times right now. I know people who've lost jobs and are, for all intents and purposes, completely broke - literally weeks away from homelessness. There are those that would argue, and maybe rightly so, that these problems were of their own doing. But what does it say of our HIGH culture that we can allow so many people to fall through the cracks and be destroyed by the very thing that's supposed to make us the envy of the world. Would these people really have been better off had they been living in mud huts, raising cattle, or hunting and gathering their food?
Yet, I think there are lessons in all this - things that I constantly remind myself.
All this is temporary. It's here today, it's gone tomorrow and we should never get used to our status. Ultimately, we are all one incident away from returning to our wandering nomad ways. The sooner we embrace the concept that the only thing tying us to a place is the fact that leaving it means changing the life we are currently living, the sooner we are able to embrace change as not only a natural part of life, but as an opportunity to start over.
Starting over means starting from the beginning again - not trying to jump from the top of one pile to the top of the next without all the intervening steps. If we lose a million dollar home, we shouldn't expect another one to fall in our lap as a replacement. We should expect that maybe we have to start with an apartment again. If we lose our 6 figure salary, maybe it means that our next job is only 5 figure, or 4 figure and that we have to adjust to that new lifestyle. If we're eating steak today, maybe it means we eat chicken tomorrow.
Some control of a crappy life is better than no control at all. Even if you go from a million dollar home, a fancy job, a car, and all the trimmings, down to a one bedroom apartment in a crappy neighborhood, a crappy job, mass transit, and food stamps - at least you're doing something. To try and hang on to the fancy life when you can't possibly hang on anymore, only means that you will freefall all the way to the bottom - and maybe never recover - because you will never grasp that life isn't status.
And most importantly, belief in something other than ourselves is a must. We are not infallible. Therefore belief in our abilities is a fallacy. We will fail. You can believe that. If you want to survive, I would suggest turning to God for guidance and support. He made the world and He made you. He is the ultimate safety net.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a crisis is to step outside your life and view it with new eyes. By challenging the notion that my culture is right, I've been able to keep American Culture in perspective. This wonderful film has only reinforced that notion in ways that were profoundly moving. Yet, I believe that being able to see my life with outside eyes, being able to distance myself from my own world, has allowed me to focus on the things that are truly important and not the often self-serving goals of my culture. I am not guaranteed to come through these trying times without a scratch. But I am also not worried about it if I do. I already know what to do if bad times should befall me. And I know that no matter what my economic status, God will walk with me.
1 comment:
Bravo, Will. Perhaps one of the best posts you've written in 4 years of blogging. All true - every last bit of it. As the Teacher in Ecclesiastes said, "It's all a chasing after the wind".
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