Thinking about culture

I arrived in Memphis Saturday without a problem at all. When you get off of the airplane there, the first thing that hits you is the smell of barbecue coming from inside the airport. It's a wonderful thing. We went straight from the airport to my favorite hometown rib place, which was a nice welcome. Then, I knew I was in Tennessee when I passed three different trucks driven by smiling men, each towing a four-wheeler with a deer strapped across the handlebars. It started me thinking about culture. We talk alot about that in my line of work, you know. We have to understand culture to share the good news. We have to love culture in order to reach people. But what is my culture now? I come from a place where I know what you mean when you say "full slab plate with slaw" and "eight point buck." I live in a place where you know the difference between a "Brie de Meaux" and "Brie de Melun" (two different kinds of regional cheese) and how to change trains in the middle of a crowd of several thousand people. I work in an organization where you have to understand acronyms like CPM, RLT, SC, FST, and ER. All those things are part of culture. And all of those things have shaped and are shaping who I am today.

Culture is where we live and who we are. It's the pond we swim in and it's the glasses we look at the world across. It's the filter through which we hear and understand. It's what we love and hate and sometimes wish were different. And it's all part of the world God has given us. Somebody recently said that we ought to be thankful for the culture where we live instead of just being thankful for where we came from. I say that I'm thankful for all of it -- ribs, cheese, trains, and all.