Message form the Prague

I am Angelica Morse, a junior psychology major at Gordon College.  I am abroad in Prague, Czech Republic this semester studying Czech and social issues involving communism, dissent, and inequality.  In a way, my traveling here has been a pilgrimage to the country of my heritage where my mother’s family still lives. 

For 3 months now I have been living in a country whose national anthem begins with, “Kde domov muj?” Where is my home?  Jan Urban, a dissident of the communist regime in Czech Republic as well as my professor, was the first to recite this line for me.  Czechs have always been occupied by other ruling powers.  They are a people who share a language, but have struggled to defend their land. Now, after the collapsing of the communist regime, Czechs are finally able to say that they live in the Czech Republic.

2009 marks the 20^th anniversary of the end of the communist regime in Czech Republic.  One would think by now that the country had moved on completely, yet I have found the Czechs still hold on to much of their old mentality. The consequences of fear and silence have paid their dues on the social normalities of the Czech people.  Under communism people would have to stand in line for hours just to buy their daily goods.  A Czech would buy whatever was available because he or she couldn’t guarantee the products would be there on another day.  Now there are options- less options than Americans are bombarded with in stores, but still there are reasonable amounts of brands- but Czechs shop in small quantities and look for sale items. On the metro no one talks unless you’re a foreigner or a teenager.  Sometimes you’ll find a couple making out or flirting, but they’re usually whispering if speaking at all.  Foreigners often perceive Czechs as rude when they interact with them along the street or in restaurants.  These facts might be true observations, but they make more sense in context.  Under communism you would be cautious with what you say in public, never talking against the regime, and keeping to yourself in case the secret police was listening.  The silence still resides in some sense that people remain private people.  In restaurants the servers don’t get paid commission and tipping is only in response to excellent service, so they don’t work towards pleasing the costumers.  No matter how they treat you, they get paid the same amount.  However, when you actually meet Czechs, have a conversation, and get to know them they are wonderful people who want to make sure you’re always full and when you ask “Jak se mas?” (how are you?) they actually respond with lengthy details.

The difference between generations is visible.  Historians call those who lived through communism the “lost generation.”  But the youth bring more modern ideals and embrace westernization.  They learn from their grandparents and even their parents about their country’s past.

My classes thrive on the stories of my professors.  My professors, who grew up under communism, and who are important figures in Czech Republic, weave their own personal experiences in with what we are learning.  I have learned things in my classes that I would never have found out from studying in America.  Jan Urban tells my class about being tortured in interrogation and how he was part of the Velvet Revolution.  Zdenek Kuhn, a Supreme Court judge and professor of law at Charles University, tells us about his case, his deciding whether the communist party should be abolished or not in CZ.  Marketa Rulikova, a sociologist who has lived in the Polish ghettos of Chicago to do research, tells us how her parents told her not to repeat what they said at the dinner table to anyone outside of their home because they didn’t support the regime.  I often leave class in a semi-trance as I am dumfounded and awe struck by the history of communism, global inequalities, and details about the history of law in Eastern Europe versus America and other western countries.  Not only am I learning about history, but also how things are now and how much of an impact the past has on the present.

Millions of people in Eastern Europe and innocents all over the world have endured horrific wars, tragedies of mass killings, inhumane conditions and torture.  I am studying only one situation.  It’s bad enough that this is our past, but I am saddened and am struggling to come to grips with the fact that this is still our present; that this still goes on around the world, and that America still partakes in it (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Iraq).  Haven’t we learned our lesson?  What I have learned in my psychology classes at Gordon, as well as from my classes in Prague, is that all people have the ability to fall to such insane actions.  Yes, Hitler was a bad man and was the leader of a mass genocide.  However, there is left the question of who is guilty.  What about the people who participated in furthering the communist party?  What about the bystanders who didn’t stand up against the regime?  What about the allies, including America, who stood back and watched millions of innocent people die?  I have learned about obedience, compliance to authority, denial, transfer of responsibility, and “duty.”  We are all vulnerable human beings who are easily manipulated, run away from embarrassment, and justify our actions in order to be right.  I have learned about identity: the loss of identity and the search for new identity.  I have learned about brainwashing and the dangers and consequences of the destruction of individualism under a totalitarian regime.  In the documentary of Abu Ghraib a prisoner says, “We heard his soul break.”  I have learned what people are capable of and it is still too heavy for me to really ask questions of why we are this way.  All I can do is pray for mercy and thank God for his grace.

After each lesson, encounters with Czechs, and from walking through the streets of Prague or the countryside, I feel closer and closer to the Czech people and my heart aches in response to their sufferings and their joys.  The end of the Czech national anthem goes as so, 

      And with a strength

      That frustrates all defiance,

That is the glorious race

      Of Czechs, 

Among Czechs is my home,

      Among Czechs, my home. 

Through all the occupations and suffering, the Czechs still remain, a people united by their language.  And I, a descendent of the Czechs have returned to the motherland and day by day am feeling more at home surrounded by my own.

Fixing Things

I was squatting down, doing my business in the bathroom and I just realized why there is water in the toilet -- It’s not only because it flushes out the feces out, but also it takes the smell away from whatever you digested. Problem solved.

 

Yet, in one incident, Americans thought it’d be best that they would replace the latrines (something that they were completely content with), with flushing toilets in order to promote “the quality of life” of an African province some time ago. Prior to this renovation, the water supply was low but ample enough to be lived on everyday. However, problems arose, apparently because the toilet has ironically flushed the water supply out to the point where water had to be rationed only to be used four days a week instead. But to my utter amazement, when I went to Israel this past summer (during the dry season), there are two buttons to flush out the excrement or whatever you did in the toilet. There is a big button and a little one; the big button to flush out the big one, and the little one to flush out your pee pee. Problem averted, right?

 

America thinks that it can solve just about anything and everything, looking for ways to the betterment of our living conditions, as if it is pitiful. Patents are formed, suggesting that we need this particular item, and our life was somehow worse before we even knew that this item existed. For example, the ShamWow (I pity the poor fellow in the commercial as he has become the laughingstock of infomercials in America).

 

The ShamWow apparently can hold up to twelve times its weight and be reused multiple times with its 10-year guarantee. I say it’s a sham for we can use torn garments to do the same job without waiting those 2-weeks for delivery. But whenever I see that commercial, I think to myself and I seem to justify that I MIGHT need it for the future (this of course, can stem from materialism and consumerism as well).

 

I would suggest that America has in itself, a sense of pride in fixing problems and this understanding that everything can be fixed. So when Americans and if I may add, westerners go abroad to help another developing country, we tend to implement our advices thinking that they are beneficial. We are not prideful when we do it; it is just society’s influence on us that causes us the want to fix things. And perhaps, this is our biggest vice. So, the question worth asking is,

 

Are we imposing some ideals and suggestions that are not necessarily better, and contrary to their philosophies and ideals?

 

Democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq at best, are called “works in progress.” Western thought, until post-modernity, included modernity and has taken over our understanding of philosophy and theology. However it is something incompatible with the Eastern thought. Thus, we are left in this impasse in our dialogue with others, and that is for two reasons.

 

First, some things just cannot be fixed. I think of Jack from Lost, who is told by his wife on her way out of the relationship, “you will always need something to fix,” when ultimately it is himself that needs to be fixed.

 

Secondly, our imposition of capitalism has debilitated other impoverished countries. Many times, self-interest outweighs the good in humanity, which concludes to say that I wouldn’t call the countries a developing one, for they will always be the footstools of the other power countries like America. Such a sad thought.

 

I leave you with no suggestions or solutions. I question our motives in why we help others and I wonder if things were at it was prior to our ideals were imposed upon. It is just sad to see that countries want to be like us but at best, they can only be mere servants to the owner of the mansion and will never be part of the family.

 

  Daniel Lee

Incarnation

It’s impossible in today’s world (even if it’s not as noticeable at Gordon College) to avoid interacting with people of other cultures—people who have grown up in a different environment, have a different set of values, and view the world in a vastly different way. Randy Kluver says in his essay, Globalization, Informatization, and Intercultural Communication, “In a globalized world, the political abstractions known as nations are becoming increasingly irrelevant, while the symbolic systems known as nations are continually in flux” (431). It would be ignorant for us, then, not to recognize both the driving values of other cultures and our own ingrained value system.

But simply to recognize these values does about as much for us as recognizing that the color of your roommate’s hair is a different color than your own.  These recognitions and the dialogues that lead to and result from them should serve a greater purpose.

As a graduating communications major, I hope to use my writing to further interfaith dialogue, especially between Muslims and Christians. Whether I end up doing this in the United States or abroad, it’s likely to involve both diverse religious beliefs and diverse cultural and national backgrounds. In this case, successful communication allows Muslims and Christians to really listen to one another, instead of simply preparing to respond.

Religion has gotten a bad name over the years because of its involvement in major world conflicts. However, if religions can work together to do some global good, maybe some of that stigma will give way to a recognition of the need for religion. Ultimately, though, this would involve both (or all) religious cultures arriving at a point where they view the life and beliefs of the other as a valid way of life, whether they agree with it or not. One of the most interesting analogies I’ve heard in service of this idea is the incarnation.

Sherwood G. Lingenfelter, provost and senior vice president at Fuller Theological Seminary, in his book Ministering Cross-Culturally presents Jesus’ incarnation as the ideal of cross-cultural participation. On first glance it’s a common concept that a lot of people would recognize—you adapt to the culture you’re trying to talk with. You become them.  But Lingenfelter emphasizes a more obscure facet of the process. Jesus was also divine. There were some things about his nature that he was not willing to compromise when coming into human form.

This may seem obvious, until you start to apply it. We have to fully know ourselves before any true dialogue can take place. This is more important in religious dialogue than in anything else. After all, any measure of “becoming them” in the context of faith is a scary matter. If we become them in a Muslim community, doesn’t that mean we’re losing some aspect of our own faith?

The solution to this, in Lingenfelter’s mind and my own, is to recognize our own values and where they come from. If we can’t see that some of our values really do stem from our faith, such as love and equality, while others are simply American values like individuality, fully participating in dialogue can be tough. Not only can we end up letting some values essential to the Christian faith slide, but we may find ourselves defending a value that isn’t at all essential to the conversation.

To clarify, my suggestion here isn’t that we put off religious dialogue until we carefully outline our beliefs and values, deciding which ones are expendable and which are essential. Quite to the contrary, I think one of the best ways to discover these essentials is through dialogue itself. We just need to be on the lookout for them.

This type of incarnation—knowing ourselves and putting ourselves in the other’s shoes— I think could do amazing things for our world. When we empathize with people different from us, we can find common values and work together with them, not simply look to tell them about Christianity.

Dawn Gadow

Kierkegaard and the Three Stages of Love

Prelude: Two Caveats

 

1)    The following is by no means an academic endeavor. I would call it a meditation, or perhaps a philosophical fragment. It is not the result of extensive study; This idea came to me while I was walking to the bathroom on the first floor of Jenks from the reference room.

2)    The relationship between my three stages and that of Kierkegaard’s is very superficial. There are several incredible similarities which might not be a coincidence, but which I have left unexegeted for the sake of brevity and time. I really should be doing homework that I’m going to be graded for.

 

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had a doctrine that was later named the “Three Stages”. They describe three attitudes toward life; three ways of appropriating oneself to one’s own existence. Though they are not merely lifestyles, these stages determine the meaning and purpose of an individuals life as well as how they live it out. Since Kierkegaard was a Christian philosopher, he believed that the highest stage could only be attained by Christians. Here they are in brief:

 

Aesthetic Stage: The individual lives in immediacy. “At this level one lives entirely for the satisfaction of the moment in conformity with the expectations of the ‘crowd’” (Aiken). For the person in this stage, the highest goal is self-satisfaction, even at the cost of living an authentic, consistent life.

Ethical Stage: The individual breaks away from hedonism and conventionalism and aligns himself to a higher ethical ideal. In this stage, one realizes that there is an eternal, ultimate good and strives to live in accordance to it. Simply put, one discovers that “there’s something more to life than fun (or being really, really, ridiculously good-looking).

Religious Stage: At this stage, the individual realizes that the eternal, ultimate good is not a static system of ethical rules, but a real, living being. One discovers that “there’s someone more to life”. Thus one who lives in the religious stage lives in faith-upheld obedience to God. Since one’s commitment is to a living God, one must at times set aside social conventions (go against the flow), and even “suspend the ethical” for the sake of living in faith.

 

In light of the three stages, I propose that there are three stages in understanding love. Similar to Kierkegaard’s three stages, these three views of love define an individual’s attitude not towards existence, but towards other people and other things. Also similar to Kierkegaard, the third and highest stage can only be attained by an intimate, existential encounter with the real, living God.

 

Aesthetic Love: The aesthetic individual loves in conformity with the expectations of the crowd. He does not know how to think for himself, but only in accordance with the tides of popular opinion. Thus the only object of love the individual is capable of having is the self. There are two ways of living in aesthetic love:

1) The Camel: The lowest form of self-love. The individual bears completely the burden of social convention, loving whatever the crowd loves and enjoying whatever the rest of popular culture enjoys. (cf. Napoleon Dynamite, Tamagotchis, iPods, and Kanye West).

2) The Lion: Upon realizing that he only ascribes value based on self-love, the individual rears his head to break out of this pattern by reacting in total opposition to popular culture (cf. people who use Macs, Zunes, popped collars, and people who participate in the Facebook group “I don’t care how comfortable crocs are, you look like a dumbass”).

 

Soapbox interlude: Realize that no matter how hard you try, you cannot subvert popular culture! You’re either going with the flow or reacting against it; but no matter what you choose, you and your decisions are affected by it. So don’t love or hate products according to popular image. Be stronger than that!

 

Conditional Love (The Child): The individual has risen above convention and has “learned to think for himself”. In this stage, one learns to separate socio-cultural conditions for love from self-serving conditions for love. One ascribes affection to people and things not based popular image, but based on how they serve him (cf. people who use Macs). However, it is still not the highest actualization of love. Because it is conditional, one’s affections in this stage is still based on self-love.

Religious Love: In the highest stage of love, the individual finally breaks free from self-love. In this stage, one does not love something “for”, but “because”. Thus, one does not love for the sake of any of the object’s intrinsic attributes, but simply “because”.

What is the “because” that propels unconditional love? It is the unconditional love that God first showed to humanity through Christ on the cross. “We love because he first loved us” (1 Jn 4.19). The only way we are capable of truly loving others is by coming to grips with the reality of God’s love for us.

Kierkegaard said the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. The reason is because all other lower forms of love are driven by the fear of rejection. Acts of conditional love are done in order to attain approval from others. But only when one understands that God has already ascribed infinite worth to each human being can one finally be free from the fear of rejection. When one is free from fear, one is free from self-love. And only when one is free from self-love can one love unconditionally.

 

Postlude: A Homily

A baby bird will not learn to fly by the objective knowledge of its flying ability. It must take the leap of faith out of the nest and into the unknown. There, seventy thousand fathoms above the ground, it attains the experiential knowledge of how to soar. Likewise, the only way we can come to unconditionally love others is through an existential encounter with the gospel truth of God’s unconditional love for us, as manifest in the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Objective, propositional knowledge of this fact is not enough, because it is not enough to transform one’s feelings of fear into feelings of worth.

Do you struggle from low self-esteem? You bet you do, if you’re still looking for approval through how you live and how you love. What you need to realize is that everything horrible you know about yourself…is true. And yet God still loves you! Live your life in reaction of unconditional love, not in search of it.

 

Sola Deo Gratia

 

Daniel Shih