Learning to Keep Our Mouths Shut

I will readily admit that I do not do this enough myself, but I am changing that. And I thought I would just let everyone know a little bit about cultural differences, false assumptions and how they can both lead to miscommunication and hurt feelings.

First off, I'd like to clarify something with all my American readers: people from other countries like being from other countries. No, by and large, they do not want to be Americans. I am specifically talking about Canadians here. They are very content in their Canadianness, and do not need to be convinced otherwise. Telling a Canadian that they are practically an American for whatever reason is rather offensive.

One thing that we should remember is that our bias is showing. Often I speak out of ignorance, because I never bothered to learn about a different culture or event, etc. Only afterward do I realize that what I said was just because I am an American and should have known better. We need to keep this firmly in mind: as Americans, we are kind of oafish, and much of this comes from the vocal seculars and from our leaders. A good picture of this is Israel and their decline throughout the last half of the Old Testament. If the king was bad, the nation as a whole started to decay rapidly. This seems to be true of any nation, just look at Nero or Constantine. I know that those are extreme examples, but the point remains the same.

As Americans, we ought to realize that we often have a negative stigma, and come off a certain way to people of other nationalities. As Christians, we should be fighting that. We should be like the faithful few in Israel and be kind and considerate hosts and helpers. We should be looking for opportunities to display our better qualities.

I was at a wedding a few days ago, a Irish/French/American wedding, with a French and an American pastor officiating. And during the toasts at the reception, both pastors gave a brief toast. The American pastor's was quickly forgotten when the French pastor stood up and gave his blessing:

"The Irish are known for their loyalty, the French are known for their love of life, and Americans are known for their generosity. May you both be blessed with all three."

I chewed on his words for a long while. "Americans? Generous? Could it be?" But it's true, American CHRISTIANS are some of the most open-hearted, generous people I have ever met. May this truly be said of more of us. May we let our generosity speak more often than our mouths do.