My Jesse Tree - 2nd week

[Seeler]

As long as we consider ourselves superior because of our religion, skin colour, culture, gender, family background, we are setting up a We/Them barrier between ourselves and God's other children. I don't like to quote scripture out of context and pretend it applies to situations that might be quite different than the original but I am reminded of Jesus saying "I have other sheep who are not of this flock."
Rather than try to make them like "us" I think that we would be wise to learn from one another.

 

[Mendalla]

And what would you or I do if for some reason we found ourselves living in a foreign land - how many of our own customs would be retain in our homes? how long would it take us to adapt to and understand the customs and values of the local people? Would we retain our own language - speak it in our home - teach it to our children? Would we practice our own religion or convert to another?

Well, I can speak to this a bit having married an immigrant. She certainly retained her language but teaching it to Little M was a bit of a lost cause once he started day care where everyone spoke English. She doesn't retain a lot of Chinese customs (though part of that is neither did the China she grew up in, which was undergoing radical modernization under Mao) though we do mark things like the Moon Festival and Chinese New Year as well as the corresponding Canadian festivals (Thanksgiving and New Year's). I have bowed to her ancestors on one occasion though these days I think that's more about remembering and honouring one's roots than it is about worshipping them. However, she definitely retained a lot of the values she learned growing up in China and there's signs that at least some of them (frugality and a general "conservatism", not necessarily in the Western social or political sense but in the sense of being careful with resources and not overextending ourselves) have taken hold in the next generation. Religion-wise, she grew up without one (she came of age in the Cultural Revolution) but leans towards Christianity though, oddly, that has as much to do with the faith experiences of relatives back in China as anything she's encountered here (her maternal grandmother and, more recently, her mother were converts who felt/feel being Christian was a positive change in their lives).

 

[Seeler]

Well, I can speak to this a bit having married an immigrant. She certainly retained her language but teaching it to Little M was a bit of a lost cause once he started day care where everyone spoke English. She doesn't retain a lot of Chinese customs (though part of that is neither did the China she grew up in, which was undergoing radical modernization under Mao) though we do mark things like the Moon Festival and Chinese New Year as well as the corresponding Canadian festivals (Thanksgiving and New Year's). I have bowed to her ancestors on one occasion though these days I think that's more about remembering and honouring one's roots than it is about worshipping them. However, she definitely retained a lot of the values she learned growing up in China and there's signs that at least some of them (frugality and a general "conservatism", not necessarily in the Western social or political sense but in the sense of being careful with resources and not overextending ourselves) have taken hold in the next generation. Religion-wise, she grew up without one (she came of age in the Cultural Revolution) but leans towards Christianity though, oddly, that has as much to do with the faith experiences of relatives back in China as anything she's encountered here (her maternal grandmother and, more recently, her mother were converts who felt/feel being Christian was a positive change in their lives).

Mendalla it's interesting to hear from someone who has actually experienced something I only wonder about.