A mixture of traditions
22/08/15 05:29
Yesterday a friend who is also a member of our congregation and I had lunch in a restaurant near the School of Mines in downtown Rapid City. The restaurant features Sushi and other Japanese foods. I enjoy eating sushi and am delighted that there are several restaurants in our town that serve the rolls. I have learned a little bit about making sushi at home and have several recipes and have limited success making the delicacy.
In our town there are a lot of opportunities to eat food from a wide variety of different cultures and places. There are restaurants featuring the food of India, Nepal, Greece, Italy, various regions of China, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and many other places. Of course the foods served in these places are not exactly the same as the food served in other countries, but rather dishes that have been adapted to foods commonly available in the United States and catering to the appetites of American customers.
I recently read that there is a long history of the role of Chinese-American restaurants in the story of immigration of people from China to the U.S. The restaurants provide jobs for new immigrants as they gain language skills and adapt to the culture of their newly-adopted country.
It isn’t just food where cultures mix and adapt. Artists and musicians are often inspired by the art and music of other places and cultures and adopt and adapt rhythms, patterns and other aspects of those places in their works. Picasso and Matisse were inspired by African art. Puccini wrote operas inspired by stories of travel to the Orient.
I confess to doing a lot of appropriation of other cultures. Eating sushi is one example. I have never been to Japan. Though we hosted exchange students from Japan and both of our children participated in student exchanges in Japan, Susan and I have no Japanese heritage of which we are aware. Still we regularly eat from rice bowls and cups and use chopsticks that were gifts of Japanese friends and we enjoy eating food that we learned to like through our association with people from Japan.
I also appropriate ideas. I am not a Native American. As far as I know my ancestors all came to this continent in the last three centuries. I did not grow up on a reservation and I have no claim to tribal culture. But I have good friends who are indigenous and I have listened carefully to their stories. I frequently use examples from their culture and use a few Lakota and Crow words from time to time when I want to express a complex idea. My thoughts have been influenced by the people I have known and the experiences I have living near reservations for most of my life.
The story of Christianity is a story of appropriation of other cultures and other languages. When Abraham and Sarah went forth from the land of their ancestors, they had to learn the ways of other people. Their people intermarried with the natives of the lands where they traveled. Our scriptures are filled with stories of people of other cultures who were adopted into our story line. Ruth, for example, married into our people and remained after she was widowed. Her story is a key element in the treasured scriptural record.
The Acts of the Apostles report the day of Pentecost as a time of rich diversity of language, culture and practice and celebrate it as the beginnings of the Christian Church. Although the church grew out of Judaism, it was, from the beginning, made up of many different cultures and traditions. The distinction between Jew and Greek was noted, and may even have been a source of controversy in the early church, but our scriptures uphold, time and time again, the importance of inclusion and minimize the differences that are a part of our stories.
There has always been room for converts and new members in the church and each time we have received new members the church itself has been changed. Traveling across the U.S. we have experienced wide diversity in the practices of our own United Church of Christ. Years ago we were delighted to participate in the chartering of a new Filipino congregation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The church was in Canada, was a member congregation of the United Church of Christ USA, had a Filipino pastor and a predominantly Filipino congregation, and was meeting in the building of an historic German congregation. Our church is always being influenced by other cultures and traditions while we continue to seek faithfulness to the historic roots of our church in the culture and languages of the Middle East.
Our Bible itself is a reflection of this wide cultural diversity. We read our scriptures in English, often in versions that were heavily influenced by British culture and the structure of the monarchy. Those English translations were deeply influenced by the 1200 years that our scriptures were circulated predominantly in Latin, though the original languages are Hebrew and Greek. It is a challenging and often daunting task to seek the original meaning of scriptures in their original context. One has to study not only the languages themselves, but the cultural appropriations that took place in the transitions. Jesus himself didn’t speak any of these languages in common conversation. His native language was Aramaic though we have stories of him reading Hebrew scriptures in public and it seems likely that he had at least a working knowledge of Latin, the language of the Roman government. It was also common for people in the region at that time to speak some Greek, the language of scholars in the region at the time. The New Testament was originally penned in Greek.
People who claim to have a pure cultural tradition are probably mistaken. Pow Wows, fry bread, and star quilts were not a part of Lakota Culture 500 years ago. In fact, they didn’t become common until the 20th century in our area. But it would be inaccurate to say that these are not important Lakota cultural traditions.
So I end up disagreeing with those who seek some kind of cultural purity. I think we all appropriate in art, literature and clothing and I enjoy the rich mixture of traditions in which we live and worship.
In our town there are a lot of opportunities to eat food from a wide variety of different cultures and places. There are restaurants featuring the food of India, Nepal, Greece, Italy, various regions of China, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and many other places. Of course the foods served in these places are not exactly the same as the food served in other countries, but rather dishes that have been adapted to foods commonly available in the United States and catering to the appetites of American customers.
I recently read that there is a long history of the role of Chinese-American restaurants in the story of immigration of people from China to the U.S. The restaurants provide jobs for new immigrants as they gain language skills and adapt to the culture of their newly-adopted country.
It isn’t just food where cultures mix and adapt. Artists and musicians are often inspired by the art and music of other places and cultures and adopt and adapt rhythms, patterns and other aspects of those places in their works. Picasso and Matisse were inspired by African art. Puccini wrote operas inspired by stories of travel to the Orient.
I confess to doing a lot of appropriation of other cultures. Eating sushi is one example. I have never been to Japan. Though we hosted exchange students from Japan and both of our children participated in student exchanges in Japan, Susan and I have no Japanese heritage of which we are aware. Still we regularly eat from rice bowls and cups and use chopsticks that were gifts of Japanese friends and we enjoy eating food that we learned to like through our association with people from Japan.
I also appropriate ideas. I am not a Native American. As far as I know my ancestors all came to this continent in the last three centuries. I did not grow up on a reservation and I have no claim to tribal culture. But I have good friends who are indigenous and I have listened carefully to their stories. I frequently use examples from their culture and use a few Lakota and Crow words from time to time when I want to express a complex idea. My thoughts have been influenced by the people I have known and the experiences I have living near reservations for most of my life.
The story of Christianity is a story of appropriation of other cultures and other languages. When Abraham and Sarah went forth from the land of their ancestors, they had to learn the ways of other people. Their people intermarried with the natives of the lands where they traveled. Our scriptures are filled with stories of people of other cultures who were adopted into our story line. Ruth, for example, married into our people and remained after she was widowed. Her story is a key element in the treasured scriptural record.
The Acts of the Apostles report the day of Pentecost as a time of rich diversity of language, culture and practice and celebrate it as the beginnings of the Christian Church. Although the church grew out of Judaism, it was, from the beginning, made up of many different cultures and traditions. The distinction between Jew and Greek was noted, and may even have been a source of controversy in the early church, but our scriptures uphold, time and time again, the importance of inclusion and minimize the differences that are a part of our stories.
There has always been room for converts and new members in the church and each time we have received new members the church itself has been changed. Traveling across the U.S. we have experienced wide diversity in the practices of our own United Church of Christ. Years ago we were delighted to participate in the chartering of a new Filipino congregation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The church was in Canada, was a member congregation of the United Church of Christ USA, had a Filipino pastor and a predominantly Filipino congregation, and was meeting in the building of an historic German congregation. Our church is always being influenced by other cultures and traditions while we continue to seek faithfulness to the historic roots of our church in the culture and languages of the Middle East.
Our Bible itself is a reflection of this wide cultural diversity. We read our scriptures in English, often in versions that were heavily influenced by British culture and the structure of the monarchy. Those English translations were deeply influenced by the 1200 years that our scriptures were circulated predominantly in Latin, though the original languages are Hebrew and Greek. It is a challenging and often daunting task to seek the original meaning of scriptures in their original context. One has to study not only the languages themselves, but the cultural appropriations that took place in the transitions. Jesus himself didn’t speak any of these languages in common conversation. His native language was Aramaic though we have stories of him reading Hebrew scriptures in public and it seems likely that he had at least a working knowledge of Latin, the language of the Roman government. It was also common for people in the region at that time to speak some Greek, the language of scholars in the region at the time. The New Testament was originally penned in Greek.
People who claim to have a pure cultural tradition are probably mistaken. Pow Wows, fry bread, and star quilts were not a part of Lakota Culture 500 years ago. In fact, they didn’t become common until the 20th century in our area. But it would be inaccurate to say that these are not important Lakota cultural traditions.
So I end up disagreeing with those who seek some kind of cultural purity. I think we all appropriate in art, literature and clothing and I enjoy the rich mixture of traditions in which we live and worship.