The Way You Do The Things You Do

I have had quite a few people question a decision I recently made, and I would like to offer an explanation. I think it will help all of us be a bit more understanding of one another.  What comes to mind when you hear the word culture?  If you're like most, you think of differences in language, dress, food, and maybe holidays or festivals.  While those are certainly obvious differences, culture encompasses SO much more than that.  Culture also includes things like:

• gender roles
• the concepts of personal space, time, cleanliness, or modesty
• what is considered funny
• attitude towards authority, school, or foreigners
• gestures and body language
• ideals of beauty 
• manners and appropriate social behavior
• childbearing and child rearing practices
• assumptions/what goes without saying

...and a whole HOST of other things that would probably never flicker across your brainwaves unless you were plunked inside another culture and found yourself floundering to try to understand what is normal to everyone else. 

It is very easy for us to make judgments about other people without taking into consideration this thing called culture.   Those of us who live and work in a culture outside our own often feel judged by both cultures instead of feeling included by both. Living in Guatemala has changed the way I see the world.  What used to be normal behavior to me--American behavior--is not normal to me anymore.  That's not to say that all Guatemalan behavior is normal to me, because that isn't the case either. I've been here almost 9 years now, and there are still a lot of things I don't know or understand about Guatemalan culture.  So I'm somewhat stuck in the middle of the two different ways of thinking.  Out of that middle ground is where I made the decision to take Olivia to her new home the other day.  

Remember Olivia?  She is the 33 year old widow who was in Loving InDeed and recently left her 6 children with their paternal grandparents in order to marry a 20 year old "man" and move over 3 hours away with him.  Many of you questioned my judgment (some of you pretty forcefully) when I drove the new couple to their home, believing that to be a show of support on my part.  Before I mention how culture played a part in that decision, let me just say that Olivia knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I was in total disagreement with her choice to leave her kids and remarry.  We had had many very frank discussions about it prior to the event.  So then why did I do it?  For one, I felt like it was important that someone on her side knew where she was in the case of emergency (one involving her or one involving her kids).  Google maps does not work in the mountains of Huehuetenango.  People who live off dirt roads in the mountains don't even have addresses.  If I hadn't taken them home, I would have had absolutely no idea how to ever find her again if the need arose.  But that's not the only reason.  There are cultural things that make Olivia's decision to leave her children a little more understandable and a little less horrible.  I am NOT saying her decision was the right one; I am only saying that I can understand how she made it.  

• In indigenous culture, it is not uncommon for a young widow to remarry and leave her kids to be raised by their grandparents.  Most men do not want to be burdened with caring for another man's children; most young women see marriage as the only way to protect themselves and get by in life.  Remember that this is a very macho culture.  Women are nothing more than property and have little to no rights in indigenous areas, regardless of what the "law" actually says.  If a woman is going to have any hope at all of having a roof over her head and food on the table, she either needs to be married or live at home with dad.  Dad was not an option for Olivia; she was orphaned at a very young age and has no memory at all of either of her parents.  So from her point of view, she needed to remarry.  (Also, from her point of view, I am her mother; she has told me so many, many times.  There is no circumstance in which I would be willing to turn my back on Jessie.  By the same token, there is no circumstance in which I will turn my back on Olivia.) 
• In indigenous culture, it is not uncommon for parents to be either extremely abusive or extremely permissive with their children. Every single one of the widows in the LI program leans towards permissiveness when it comes to their children. Olivia asked her children to move with her; they said no, so Olivia would never attempt to force them.  It just goes against the grain.  
• In indigenous culture, the men have all the power.  Since Olivia's father and husband are both dead, the next man in line to be her authority is her father in law.  He would not allow the kids to move with their mother even if they wanted to, so even though it is Olivia's legal right to take them, it would not even cross her mind to fight him on it.  

I am positive that there are a lot of other cultural factors at play here that I do not understand, but these three things alone, coupled with the fact that I love Olivia no matter what she does means that I was willing to put my own feelings about her decision aside and take her to her new home.  

This whole situation has made me realize that I need to be quicker to extend grace to people instead of being so quick to judge.  The fact is that none of us really knows how another person thinks, why they do what they do, how they were raised, or what difficulties they have faced that have shaped them into the person that they are.  Yes, there is biblical right and biblical wrong.  Some things are black or white.  But the older I get, the more I realize that a lot of life falls into the gray, and that I will rarely go wrong by extending grace.