A Birthday Vacation in LA

My birthday, March 9th, was an intense, chaotic and hectic day. It was an emotional rollercoaster: calls from friends in London, transitions and drama with my 3 part time jobs, friend's emergencies, car problems, planning events, making decisions and having little flexibility to get things done. I rarely get stressed out, largely because I manage things and adapt well but that whole week, all the way up to walking on the plane Thursday night to LA I was admittedly stressed. It was a foreign feeling, and it took a while to name it but when I let out a sigh on the plane, I realized I was ready for a holiday. And there is no one better I know to help me enjoy life than my brother Nate.

He has been in LA for four years now and calls it home. We had a loose schedule. I mainly wanted to relax, see his friends, explore the city a little and go surfing at least once. After arriving, I spent the next 2.5 hrs in LA traffic; not the best start. He works at a college supervising students, which he does well at but at 25 he is ready to move out of the college scene. After being a nomad myself, it was nice to be around someone who has known me so long-he is my triplet after all! We went to his friend's house in Beverly Hills and I had a few glasses of the best wine I've ever tasted:) His friend greeted me with a sentence I would hear often that week"So you're Ben, Nate has told me so much about you". I wasn't sure whether to feel honored or worried by that introduction...thankfully I have a good brother who doesn't make me look bad in order to make himself look better.

We went to Six Flags! It had been over a decade since I had been at a theme park and I felt like a little kid again excited to go on rollercoasters and feel a strange attraction to testing my fears. Exchange students joined us from the university who were from Germany and Hungary, so their stories kept us entertained while waiting in the lines. The rollercoasters made me feel like a child's toy-i remember as a kid making all sorts of rides and courses for my lego men and spinning them around and around different directions. I definitely felt a rush at times!

The next morning we woke up early, walked out the door, grabbed our boards and walked down to the water. As I strapped my leash and ran into the water I realized it had been years since I was surfing. I call myself a paddler, not a surfer because I am a beginner and spend more time paddling than actually riding the waves. I'd rather be honest about my inexperience-at least it decreases the humiliation of missing a wave. The breaks were only 2-3 ft but it was enough to get up on my longboard. It was a joy to see dolphins only 15 feet from me. They are large animals and I felt kind of helpless on my little board floating waiting for a wave. It was a perfect day, and I was soaking in the morning sunshine. I stayed out in the water until I literally could not paddle anymore because my hands were too cold to close my fingers together.

My last night there we went to West Hollywood and ate at Dan Tana's Restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd. I quickly saw that it was a Hollywood hangout and when I heard it opened in the 60s, I knew the food must be amazing. I savoured their mozzarella marinara and linguini clams over the next hour with glasses of wine. I felt spoiled!

My last day I enjoyed having a slow morning, making coffee and going for a walk in the sunshine. I had to fight off the thoughts of all that i'd need to do when I returned that night. I was slipping away from the "holiday zone"! Jumping in the pool, playing basketball and lifting weights the next few hours kept those thoughts at bay. On my flight home, I was grateful for the silence, to soak in the final hours of my holiday. My birthday vacation was over, and it could not have come at a better time.

The Impact of Cross-Cultural Experience (Part 2)

Sorry to delay the continued thought on this. I had finished by talking about the power of the gospel to unite different people and culture and tranform them into unique, strong, and honest communities. I believe this happens because this "good news", that Jesus died to save sinners, challenges and affirms aspects of every person and every culture. The fact that God claims that the fullest display of his power and glory is shown at the cross, what is meant to show utter shame and defeat-God restores what is broken by paying the cost himself. Since Adam's rebellion, no one is utterly evil but are marred, we all are like shattered ruins which hint towards a former glory, giving us a glimpse at what was and a peak into what will be. The power and wonder of the cross, that "God so loved that world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life", reveals God's commitment to his creation, those made in his image. That story of a covenant, a faithful passion for His people, captures us in such a way that others are drawn not to simply a system of beliefs and moral codes but drawn to feel more human, not less, more whole and complete, not disillusioned and fragile. When considering the diversity of cultures and beliefs, the gospel becomes more beautiful and meaningful, not less. We all have faith in something, somewhere to find worth, guidance, peace, and joy. We long to be known yet fear full disclosure. It is intimidating yet freeing to be welcome as humans-frail, tattered yet hopeful-in his presence. I am so glad that we did not have to earn our way to Him or go find Him but rather he came to us and defying all rationality he chose to come in such a common way that some people missed him completely. His normalcy, his humanness was as staggering as His glory. He valued relationships becoming subject to time and space for our sake. Living and learning cross-culturally has shown me the weight given by God accomodating us in such a drastic way and the joy in seeing myself and others transformed and shaped slowly as a result into the "true adam" as restored image-bearers of God.

The Impact of Cross-Cultural Experience (Part 1)

As I met with parents of the youth group at my church for an informal “get to know you” night, I was asked a particular question that caught me off guard: “how has your interest and pursuit of understanding and engaging cross-culturally shaped you?” I was not sure how to answer. It was seven years ago that I first decided to study religion and history in order to do community development, to “understand” culture instead of having a goal to simply “appreciate” it as anthropology or many religion programs would. But what kind of journey have I had since that decision? Where has that path led? What have I learned and am still learning?
I was tongue tied for a minute, mulling the question over in my head searching for an answer-an answer that was concise, believable, yet authentic. I had none b/c like culture, my answer had to have a context, a framework, color and nuance. Yes I have changed the last seven years and have learned much but I also see how much I have yet to learn. These are all very general areas but they are what came to mind:
1. Culture is complex
You don't need to go to another country to be confronted with a different culture. Surfers are sometimes described in Nebraska like some of us describe a third-world culture! Seeing, recognizing and learning to love the differences in your community is hard. Going from White Center in West Seattle (almost everything but white racially to those who know it) to a largely white Christian high school was cross-cultural, with all the vocabulary, behavioral mores, tensions, questions, risks, acclamation and critique of going to another country. Going from that school to Lookout Mountain, GA (the south) for college was another cross-cultural experience. I worked one summer in St. Louis, with one of the highest home owning immigrant communities in the country, for an inner city youth development program,. I also helped with a youth group 20 min away in white suburbia. It was two different worlds separated by a highway (sort of like Fitzgerald's portrayal of the area between New York and West Egg in The Great Gatsby). In some ways it was easier for me to go to Uganda and relate with the village community there than it would have been to engage with the deaf community outside my own house in the US. Living in and visiting cities around the country made me realize how quickly we create cultures and subcultures, largely to define ourselves better in light of others. Even in a world class city like London where you'd imagine a melting pot experience to be common, living with the Indian community 30 min outside London and riding my cycle to central London was immensely cross-cultural! And now, living in/near the Central District and working primarily in Green Lake and further west in Ballard I see and feel like I pass through markedly different communities.
2. We connect as humans not by avoiding hard questions but by asking them
Avoiding the hard questions is a disfavor to others, in fact it is quite lazy though it seems “kind”. Asking my host family in Mexico why I got to sleep on the only bed in the house taught me much about their culture, hospitality and contentment. Asking the finance minister of Uganda how he handles the weight of civil war and economic disaster was hard, but it revealed his heart-as he spoke of Jesus' love for him even as tears came down his cheek recounting the struggles of living out that faith in a broken world. Asking a suburban youth what he wants for his birthday but knows he can't receive -parents who work less and love him more-revealed how poverty is not simply economic. Asking a second generation Indian immigrant in London how he felt about his future-fearful, weary and anxious-revealed a man caught between two cultures struggling to love one while paving his way in another. Asking hard questions connects us because at our core we are amazingly similar. How someone asks those questions matters because only when you feel cherished do you trust someone fully and see grace and hope as a gift can. And then they, despite their circumstances, are both challenged and comforted by being part of something bigger, more complex and beautiful than they fully know. Friendship, humble yet intentional fellowship, breaks past systems and structures to our deepest hopes and fears, doubts and dreams, which is both scary and remarkably comforting.
Food for thought: Christians were first called that name by the Romans in Antioch b/c they could not be categorized. For their own safety, the Romans had to segregate those they ruled from each other but since Christians came from all sorts of racial, economic and cultural backgrounds, they didn't know what unified them other than believing Christ, hence “Christians”. Read any history of Rome or any portion of the Bible and you'll see that combining people with differences into one group is messy and dangerous yet despite culture's complexity and life's hard questions, the group that emerges is stronger, not weaker. More on how that happens in the next post...