It’s the little things
On July 9th, 2018, I married the second greatest love of my life (Captain Cutler) in a beautiful garden ceremony in northern New South Wales.
We were blessed to be surrounded by friends and family, people who knew us and loved us and were happy to journey the nine hour drive from Rockhampton to attend our destination wedding.
What also made this day so special was the presence of my husband’s family and two very close friends who had made the trip from the great US of A to support their beloved son, brother and friend as he vowed to love me ‘until death us do part’.
What is hopefully now clear is that my husband is American and hails from the state of Michigan – home of the great lakes; the Detroit Pistons (basketball); the Red Wings (ice hockey); snow (and lots of it); Big Boy and the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.
When we first started dating it wasn’t the big cultural differences that grabbed our attention, rather it was the little things. For instance, people would drop him home after being at the movies or going out to dinner and he would be disconcerted that the driver wouldn’t stay kerbside to check that he made it to the front door or made it into the house safely (which is fairly typical behaviour in the States).
Or it might have been the way in which he pronounced certain words like ‘mocha’ or ‘scone’, otherwise it was references to music or TV shows that he had grown up with and that I had no context of so that I could relate to him.
These were the little cultural differences that gradually began to shape our relationship. In this sense I was really blessed, because nothing about the way he had been raised, the country in which he had been born, negatively impacted our relationship. We also, despite our cultural differences, had one key thing in common – we both loved God. It was this faith we shared, a commonality across both our cultures, that further sculpted and strengthened our relationship.
What’s the point?
At a point where I am more than a third of the way through my word allocation, this becomes a pertinent question. Here is the answer: you, dear reader, interact with culture on a daily basis.
You mix with it regarding geographic location (the cultural norms and traditions of your country); you become hands on with it in your family, creating a culture in your family of love, patience and forgiveness or resentment, hatred and intolerance; you deal with it in the workplace where perhaps a culture of competitiveness drives you and/or your colleagues to behave in such a way that at times you leave work feeling ashamed for the way you’ve treated others.
Or perhaps you’ve learnt to survive at a school where bullying and harassment are basic cultural foundations– whatever the context may be, you and I, we all play a part in interacting and creating, or contributing to culture, on a daily basis, and it can be simply in the little things that we do.
What’s the significance?
I love to read. One of my favourite authors is a man by the name of Mitch Albom whose work titled, Tuesday’s with Morrie, is one of my all-time favourite reads. The main character, a retired professor slowly dying of ALS, says this to Mitch during one of his Tuesday lessons with the professor,
“Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.”
We actively contribute to culture on a daily basis and if we have this level of contact with culture in our workplace, in our families and in our churches, then we are positioned, as followers of Christ, to bring about Christ culture into places we inhabit so that we can change the current cultural climate of these environments.
For example, you don’t like how exclusive your church is? Make a point of saying ‘hi’ and sitting with those couples or those individuals who you know are new to church that Sunday. Your workplace has made some changes to policies that compromise the Christian mission or ethos of the business? Email those in leadership with suggestions that help the business to retain its Christ-centred calling without compromising standards or expectations.
The cultural climate of your school is degrading to minorities or women? Role model through your own behaviour how God would treat these groups of people and be uncompromising regarding this – expect people who choose to hang around you to follow your example.
We have a responsibility, as Christians, to bring Christ culture to wherever we happen to be and to reject the culture of the world that would tell us to hate our haters, to hold onto resentment and plot payback, to take care of our needs and wants first before anyone else’s. The way in which we do this is in practising the little things of our faith daily.
Janna Cutler is a Press Services International columnist from Rockhampton, Queensland.