One more for the series on listening...
See "Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes" for good strategies on how to be the one who is in touch with what people are thinking and saying - about the things you care about, and are investing your career in or giving your life to. And thanks to Paul Merrill for 'sharing' this item.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Through Her Eyes book report
Hey, it kind of seems like old news now, but you know, I wrote a book. I mean, one that has my name on it and was published by someone who is not my employer. In spite of the "written by me" part, though, like most everything else worth doing it was a collaborative effort - I was basically the narrator for stories told by two dozen women serving in cross-cultural ministry.
They live in various parts of the Muslim world. Including England. Yes! I only met "Joyce" once but heard enough of her story to put together a chapter called "Loving Muslims in Her Own Country." I'd love to see more people doing that.
And it's a pretty strategic thing in several regards. Have you heard about the teenage Somali boys in Minneapolis that have been disappearing? Yeah. They are being lured away to join their country's civil war. That's likely one step on a process of radicalization that some fear will lead them back to the US, with their American passports, fully indoctrinated and equipped to wreak some serious havoc.
So if we want to live in something like peace we've got to keep finding ways to reach out to people who are different from us. This is a multi-cultural world, and it's far too easy to make enemies. We need more sensitivity (like Rick Warren's inaugural prayer) and less throwing stones (like that uphelpful Obsession documentary).
Where was I going with this? Yes, the book. Well, writing a missions book is like writing a book of poetry. It may get published, but don't quit your day job. Through Her Eyes was published in 2005, and it brought in a whopping $80 in royalties this last year.
What pleases me is that I'm running into more and more people who have read it and found it of use. Several mission organizations are recommending it or even making it required reading for their outgoing candidates who are women. It finally got its first customer review on Amazon this month. (A favorable - if somewhat ungrammatical - one, too!) And most everywhere I do public speaking I'm able to get it into more hands. I hope to sell a couple dozen copies at Perspectives classes this winter.
So at long last I put up a simple Through Her Eyes website. Interested? Take a look.
They live in various parts of the Muslim world. Including England. Yes! I only met "Joyce" once but heard enough of her story to put together a chapter called "Loving Muslims in Her Own Country." I'd love to see more people doing that.
And it's a pretty strategic thing in several regards. Have you heard about the teenage Somali boys in Minneapolis that have been disappearing? Yeah. They are being lured away to join their country's civil war. That's likely one step on a process of radicalization that some fear will lead them back to the US, with their American passports, fully indoctrinated and equipped to wreak some serious havoc.
So if we want to live in something like peace we've got to keep finding ways to reach out to people who are different from us. This is a multi-cultural world, and it's far too easy to make enemies. We need more sensitivity (like Rick Warren's inaugural prayer) and less throwing stones (like that uphelpful Obsession documentary).
Where was I going with this? Yes, the book. Well, writing a missions book is like writing a book of poetry. It may get published, but don't quit your day job. Through Her Eyes was published in 2005, and it brought in a whopping $80 in royalties this last year.
What pleases me is that I'm running into more and more people who have read it and found it of use. Several mission organizations are recommending it or even making it required reading for their outgoing candidates who are women. It finally got its first customer review on Amazon this month. (A favorable - if somewhat ungrammatical - one, too!) And most everywhere I do public speaking I'm able to get it into more hands. I hope to sell a couple dozen copies at Perspectives classes this winter.
So at long last I put up a simple Through Her Eyes website. Interested? Take a look.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Blog etiquette / copyright issues - any advice?
I have lots of stuff to blog about, but I'm holding back a bit... I need to move ahead some of the writing projects that constitute my job (rather than my hobby). Yesterday I spent more than eight hours on my 1200-word "column" for the ezine and it still doesn't feel done to me.
Several longer and more complicated writing projects have been languishing for months. I love writing, and these are fun projects - I'm eager to work on them. Yet I feel bad about what is undone and unsure what it will take to get them unstuck. Well, for starters, some loving attention.
So there you have it, my love/hate relationship with the writing life.
I also have an ethics/etiquette question about whether it's OK to post some things I've assembled for this blog. I have several more reflections on joy, responding to "Champagne for the Soul." I thought I'd make it a five-part series. But after I had it all written up, I checked to see how much of the book I was actually quoting. When I added up the quotes in the five posts, they totaled 900 words.
Is that right? legal? I might be able to track down the author and/or publisher for permission, but where do those boundaries actually lie? What's the line between being a fan and being a thief? I have been involved in publishing long enough that I ought to know, but I don't. Do you?
Several longer and more complicated writing projects have been languishing for months. I love writing, and these are fun projects - I'm eager to work on them. Yet I feel bad about what is undone and unsure what it will take to get them unstuck. Well, for starters, some loving attention.
So there you have it, my love/hate relationship with the writing life.
I also have an ethics/etiquette question about whether it's OK to post some things I've assembled for this blog. I have several more reflections on joy, responding to "Champagne for the Soul." I thought I'd make it a five-part series. But after I had it all written up, I checked to see how much of the book I was actually quoting. When I added up the quotes in the five posts, they totaled 900 words.
Is that right? legal? I might be able to track down the author and/or publisher for permission, but where do those boundaries actually lie? What's the line between being a fan and being a thief? I have been involved in publishing long enough that I ought to know, but I don't. Do you?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sounds of the Concourse / My Lost Cell Phone
This fall I let 100 days pass between trips out past the big blue mustang, to the Denver airport. But now I’m traveling again. I guess I was kind of eager to get away for the weekend this time… Two hours before flight time, I was already at my gate.So I logged onto the airport wireless (free, if a tad bit unreliable) to play around on the Internet. And, I wrote you this poem. Er, poem-ish thing. Sorry. I’m a writer, but not that kind of writer. Anyway, all disclaimers aside, here ‘tis.
Sounds of the Concourse
Crowds in halls and courtesy calls
Suitcase wheels and business deals
Weary sighs and baby cries
Kiss goodbye, prepare to fly
I always wonder if as I go
I’ll hear a voice I used to know
Or catch a glimpse of some old face
Familiar from some other place
To fly alone still has its pleasures
The independent, easy measures
I stop and browse or stride ahead
Go where I like, or as I am led
Caution! moving walk is nearing its end:
Please watch your step!
My Lost Cell Phone
As I got off the plane in
I waited for the plane to unload and went back to look, but my phone was nowhere to be found. So I guess I should still check at the lost and found when I get back to
I’m tempted not to replace it. Hmmm. But probably the world has moved too far in the cell phone direction to let me make such a choice without facing its aghast, mystified disapproval even more than I felt about three years ago when such tensions brought me into the cell-phone-using world. (I had a group of friends at that time who thought it was terrible that I didn’t have one. Strangely enough, most of those people moved away or somehow slipped out of my life, without even calling, not long after I got the one I have. Had.)
What do you think, can I go cell-phone-less for a while? Or is it back to Target to pick up another pay-as-you-go, $15/month model like the one I lost? Surely I need nothing fancier or more expensive. I used the thing very little.
Well, consider this a public service announcement. If you - strangely enough - are dying to talk to me, you'll have to send an email instead. I'll be watching. (Now THAT, I'm addicted to!)
We had a funny conversation at work after that plane semi-crashed at the Denver airport recently. It went off the runway and caught fire and everyone had to be evacuated. We wondered if there was some kind of statistic about how many people really follow the rule about leaving all carry-ons behind. Would you?
I would be sorely troubled about leaving my laptop there to burn up.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Problem of Misattribution
Yesterday I wrote about culture shock, how we deny it due to a lack of cross-cultural experience (we don't recognize it) or a fear of failure (we don't want to admit it). Here's another helpful explanation.
Patty Lane, in her helpful book A Beginner’s Guide to Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multi-Cultural World, says the biggest problem in multicultural relationships [or, could it be, all relationships?] is something she calls “misattribution.”
Patty Lane, in her helpful book A Beginner’s Guide to Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multi-Cultural World, says the biggest problem in multicultural relationships [or, could it be, all relationships?] is something she calls “misattribution.”
Misattribution is our habit of attributing meaning or intention to someone else’s behavior based on our own culture or experience. Basically, we think we “get each other,” but we’re really getting each other wrong. It is especially common, when two cultures interact, for the dominant culture to misattribute the actions of the minority culture, because members of the dominant culture have little incentive to discover alternate explanations. But it often goes both ways.
Misattribution can be nearly impossible to recognize at times, she says, for two reasons.
1. First, because our own assumptions about what things mean are typically so ingrained that they appear to be universal or common sense.
2. Secondly, because we tend to react emotionally without questioning how accurate our interpretations may be.
The fact is that two cultures may not only hold different values but may even express the same values in opposite ways. So, people may have a great deal of common ground and not realize it. Or, people may assume they are on common ground and not realize they aren’t.
Lane gives an example about two women, Sue and Jo, getting together to talk about working with one another on a project.
1. Jo, a Native American, comes out of the conversation feeling cautiously optimistic. She thinks Sue presented some good ideas, though she wishes Sue wouldn’t talk so fast; she’s not sure she got it all. There might be some drawbacks, but time would tell, and Jo was willing to move ahead.
2. Sue, an Anglo, came out of the conversation frustrated. The whole time she noticed that Jo was just sitting quietly with her arms crossed - obviously resisting what was being said, and saying little if anything. Sue thinks there is no hope that Jo will agree to pursue the project.
If it weren’t for misattribution, Jo might realize that Sue’s rate of speech might not mean she is pushy or domineering, but have to do with where she grew up. She might also realize that Sue would expect some kind of commitment from her when the conversation ended, since Sue comes from a more results-oriented culture. For her part, Sue did not realize that where Jo comes from culture it is respectful to sit quietly while someone is speaking, and unwise to make a commitment too quickly.
So, obviously this factor is significant for us when we work or travel in countries other than our own, and equally important when we are dealing with people from other cultures or subcultures, closer to home.
And… well, isn’t every relationship with another human being to some extent cross-cultural?
One of my favorite books that explores this theme is Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead. (Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow does as well, and I'd recommend it too though it is more disturbing.) Science fiction is great for asking big philosophical questions. This book, in particular, deals with how much we want to be heard and how deeply we can misunderstand one another.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Culture Shock? We Don't Have It!
A. Recognizing It
"Maybe you can tell me," he said, leaning forward, "why Americans never want to admit that they are in culture shock."
The speaker was kind of "American" himself. He spent two decades in the U.S. and married an American woman before returning to the Middle Eastern country where he was born and grew up.
He was still frustrated with how many of those who came to visit and work in his country hit the wall, culture-wise, and didn't even realize what was happening to them. "The first month, it's a honeymoon, they think Lebanon is great. By the third month, it's 'These people are all liars! My landlady lied to me. Maybe you are lying to me right now.'"
Everyone gathered around the table laughed. Most of us have never been to Lebanon, but we know that feeling. We've seen ourselves and teammates do the same thing in other countries. I hate haggling with taxi drivers, for example - hate feeling like I might be ripped off, hate more being the kind of person who is walking about being suspicious about being ripped off. That's right, I don't know who I can trust; I don't know how to tell, don't know what's reasonable. I let it get under my skin.
Culture shock? You bet. A bit of practice, a bit of sympathy, a bit of advice are all it takes, often, to soothe me. Soon I can hail a taxi in the new place without qualms.
I wasn't sure why Americans (and others) are so reluctant to recognize their own culture shock. But as the group chatted we came up with a couple of theories.
1. Lack of experience. "We are too accustomed to being able to trust our guts," said one of us. "Many of us don't have enough experience to realize that something may not be what it seems." So, we think, if it feels wrong, it must be wrong. We're not in culture shock, we may think, subconsciously: we're just in a messed-up culture. It's a mistake anyone can make. But it may be one that those with less cross-cultural experience are more likely to make.
2. Fear of failure. "We are afraid to admit that stuff is bugging us. We are reacting, but try to stuff our feelings and pretend they aren't influencing us. Maybe we don't want to disappoint others, or we are afraid of being sent home." One of the counselor-types in this conversation mentioned that she finds it helpful to use the term "culture stress," instead of "culture shock." To Americans, being under stress is normal, being in shock implies you are sick or broken somehow.
Readers, do you think there are other big reasons that people - and maybe American people in particular - don't want to admit they are in culture shock?
Of course, every culture is corrupt. Though it's untrue to say "Middle Eastern people are liars," the offended American may still be picking up on something that is not just cultural and neutral, but indeed problematic. My Lebanese friend went on to say: You can't accommodate culture on everything. He, for example, refuses to pay bribes. Ever. He fires anyone working for him who does. And this makes things that could be done in days or weeks take months or years.
B. Overcoming It
What can you do to get help or help someone else in culture shock - er, stress? Here are my top tips from my own experience and from observing, coaching, or interviewing others. Anything you'd add?
1. Learn to recognize the signs. (See InterVarsity's "Entry Posture Diagram.") Knowing about culture stress won't keep you from experiencing it, but it can help you separate what happened and how you felt about it from what it means: it will help you suspend judgment. And it will teach you that you do have a choice in the matter. Certain stresses are inevitable but you can choose how to respond.
2. Find a good guide. Do more than just read a book. Find a real person - maybe a fellow expat - who is willing and able to help you. If you are the one experiencing culture stress, look for those who are well adjusted to the culture and sympathetic (to the culture, not just to you!) and ask them to help you understand. Their perspective will be more helpful than someone who is as green as you are. Not that fellow-sufferers aren't comforting as well, but if you really want to grow and adjust, you'll need some additional help from someone further along.
3. Make a local friend. Even just a little bit of time with someone you can relate to and communicate with makes a huge difference. A real, ongoing friendship is best, but even a short home-stay or lunch with a local will probably help you get an insider's perspective. Once I took a patriotic young man to North Africa, one who had a strong anti-Arab bias. He promised to "be good," but if someone started saying anything against his country or his president (as he thought they might) well then, watch out. I talked him through what he might encounter, gave him some strict boundaries, and prayed hard. Turned out it was not a problem - not after he met a cool, young English-speaker who also played the guitar and liked the same kind of music he did. Any political differences melted away.
4. Develop local competence. Learn language, get a map, master the money system. Be the one who uses the phone, or figures out the metro, or buys the snacks. It's OK to be scared, but it's also great to discover things are not so hard as they seem. Get some help, get some advice, bring a friend, but do it. Once you realize it's not such a big deal to ____ or _____, that you don't have to depend on others to take care of such things for you, you'll unwind and be able to engage with the culture without being so uptight and stressed out by it. Before you know it, you may be teaching or taking care of someone else!
That's enough for today, but if I were making a top ten list of tips for cultural adjustment I'd probably add:
5. Celebrate and seek out the stuff you like about the culture.
6. Ask a lot of (open-minded, nonthreatening) questions (of your "guide" or your local friend) to help you learn.
7. Remind yourself that whatever is happening probably makes sense to the people involved.
8. Keep a journal, emphasizing how you feel about things (often healthier than venting to others).
9. Let yourself take breaks, and use them to seek out things that really work to refresh you (hint, it's not the same for everybody).
10. Pray. God is in control. He got there before you did, and he hasn't left you.
I came across a good reflection by some InterVarsity staff workers about their experience with culture stress in Africa. I was looking for that famous Entry Posture Diagram online (the H. family in SE Asia once told me, to my amusement, that their motto was, "The Entry Posture Diagram / will get you out of any jam.") You can read about the IV family's experience living it out, here.
See also: The Problem of Misattribution
"Maybe you can tell me," he said, leaning forward, "why Americans never want to admit that they are in culture shock."
The speaker was kind of "American" himself. He spent two decades in the U.S. and married an American woman before returning to the Middle Eastern country where he was born and grew up.
He was still frustrated with how many of those who came to visit and work in his country hit the wall, culture-wise, and didn't even realize what was happening to them. "The first month, it's a honeymoon, they think Lebanon is great. By the third month, it's 'These people are all liars! My landlady lied to me. Maybe you are lying to me right now.'"
Everyone gathered around the table laughed. Most of us have never been to Lebanon, but we know that feeling. We've seen ourselves and teammates do the same thing in other countries. I hate haggling with taxi drivers, for example - hate feeling like I might be ripped off, hate more being the kind of person who is walking about being suspicious about being ripped off. That's right, I don't know who I can trust; I don't know how to tell, don't know what's reasonable. I let it get under my skin.
Culture shock? You bet. A bit of practice, a bit of sympathy, a bit of advice are all it takes, often, to soothe me. Soon I can hail a taxi in the new place without qualms.
I wasn't sure why Americans (and others) are so reluctant to recognize their own culture shock. But as the group chatted we came up with a couple of theories.
1. Lack of experience. "We are too accustomed to being able to trust our guts," said one of us. "Many of us don't have enough experience to realize that something may not be what it seems." So, we think, if it feels wrong, it must be wrong. We're not in culture shock, we may think, subconsciously: we're just in a messed-up culture. It's a mistake anyone can make. But it may be one that those with less cross-cultural experience are more likely to make.
2. Fear of failure. "We are afraid to admit that stuff is bugging us. We are reacting, but try to stuff our feelings and pretend they aren't influencing us. Maybe we don't want to disappoint others, or we are afraid of being sent home." One of the counselor-types in this conversation mentioned that she finds it helpful to use the term "culture stress," instead of "culture shock." To Americans, being under stress is normal, being in shock implies you are sick or broken somehow.
Readers, do you think there are other big reasons that people - and maybe American people in particular - don't want to admit they are in culture shock?
Of course, every culture is corrupt. Though it's untrue to say "Middle Eastern people are liars," the offended American may still be picking up on something that is not just cultural and neutral, but indeed problematic. My Lebanese friend went on to say: You can't accommodate culture on everything. He, for example, refuses to pay bribes. Ever. He fires anyone working for him who does. And this makes things that could be done in days or weeks take months or years.
B. Overcoming It
What can you do to get help or help someone else in culture shock - er, stress? Here are my top tips from my own experience and from observing, coaching, or interviewing others. Anything you'd add?
 |
2. Find a good guide. Do more than just read a book. Find a real person - maybe a fellow expat - who is willing and able to help you. If you are the one experiencing culture stress, look for those who are well adjusted to the culture and sympathetic (to the culture, not just to you!) and ask them to help you understand. Their perspective will be more helpful than someone who is as green as you are. Not that fellow-sufferers aren't comforting as well, but if you really want to grow and adjust, you'll need some additional help from someone further along.
3. Make a local friend. Even just a little bit of time with someone you can relate to and communicate with makes a huge difference. A real, ongoing friendship is best, but even a short home-stay or lunch with a local will probably help you get an insider's perspective. Once I took a patriotic young man to North Africa, one who had a strong anti-Arab bias. He promised to "be good," but if someone started saying anything against his country or his president (as he thought they might) well then, watch out. I talked him through what he might encounter, gave him some strict boundaries, and prayed hard. Turned out it was not a problem - not after he met a cool, young English-speaker who also played the guitar and liked the same kind of music he did. Any political differences melted away.
4. Develop local competence. Learn language, get a map, master the money system. Be the one who uses the phone, or figures out the metro, or buys the snacks. It's OK to be scared, but it's also great to discover things are not so hard as they seem. Get some help, get some advice, bring a friend, but do it. Once you realize it's not such a big deal to ____ or _____, that you don't have to depend on others to take care of such things for you, you'll unwind and be able to engage with the culture without being so uptight and stressed out by it. Before you know it, you may be teaching or taking care of someone else!
That's enough for today, but if I were making a top ten list of tips for cultural adjustment I'd probably add:
5. Celebrate and seek out the stuff you like about the culture.
6. Ask a lot of (open-minded, nonthreatening) questions (of your "guide" or your local friend) to help you learn.
7. Remind yourself that whatever is happening probably makes sense to the people involved.
8. Keep a journal, emphasizing how you feel about things (often healthier than venting to others).
9. Let yourself take breaks, and use them to seek out things that really work to refresh you (hint, it's not the same for everybody).
10. Pray. God is in control. He got there before you did, and he hasn't left you.
I came across a good reflection by some InterVarsity staff workers about their experience with culture stress in Africa. I was looking for that famous Entry Posture Diagram online (the H. family in SE Asia once told me, to my amusement, that their motto was, "The Entry Posture Diagram / will get you out of any jam.") You can read about the IV family's experience living it out, here.
See also: The Problem of Misattribution
Monday, January 19, 2009
Pet Peeves
So, I started thinking about pet peeves, and why we call them pets, and an answer came to me a few days later. Just kidding; it is pretty obvious. But taking the analogy a little further, one wonders – since making pets of our peeves only causes trouble, makes mountains out of mole hills as it were – what would happen if we stopped feeding our pet peeves? If we neglected, even abandoned them? If we drove out on some lonely road in our minds, pitched them out, and left them to fend for themselves? Would we find ourselves unable to let them go, to drive away? Would they come back and find us? Or could we in some cases be rid of them forever?
I wonder if there are one or two pet peeves I could stop nurturing, give up my right to be snotty and offended about, today. Now, keep this in perspective. I know there is a time to fight for truth and justice and against mediocrity and fuzzy thinking. That's not what I'm talking about. Pet peeves are, I think, the things we get upset about that really don't matter. (And if we let them, they frequently get in the way of the things that DO matter.)
For example, when I told E., who organized much of this last big event I went to, that I was glad it wasn't "youth group-y." "You know," I explained, "like when someone gets up and says they are from Texas and all these people have to say, 'woo hoo, Texas!' There was very little of that." She looked at me like I was nuts, and laughed. OK, I realized in my head, there's nothing wrong with that kind of thing. If I sometimes roll my eyes at it, it doesn't really bother me, either. I was just treating it like a pet peeve. (And for the record, I am NOT immune to the charm of Texas-ness!)
Of course the easiest pet peeves to give up would be the small ones, like that (just join in and say, "Go Texas!") It may only take a small twist of perspective to see a behavior or situation from someone else’s point of view - or take on faith that there is another, legitimate way to look at it, even if I can’t tell what that might be.
But how much more helpful it would be if I gave up the big ones – those peeves that I’ve fed and nursed and toted everywhere, keeping them alive and insisting on their right to go with me wherever I go? When my preferences become prejudices and judgments? (Come back later this week, when I plan to write about misattribution and culture shock.)
Well, giving them up my favorite, fattest pet peeves all together might be a lot to do all at once. But surely I could become more sensitive to when it’s most necessary to leave them in the car or tie them outside the front door rather than bringing them along and giving them attention I could instead be giving to listening to and loving actual people. Rather than nursing my pet ideas and airing my own opinions.
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