Is it a matter of culture? the time we live?

[Lupita]

My ex friend, now I do not consider her a friend because I am afraid of her, is engaged to a person from a Asian culture. I do not want to mention any nationality because I do not want to offend anybody. In this culture the man is the king of his kingdom. The kingdom is his family. She only does whatever he wants, but he is not considered an N. It is just the way it is. In several occasions she wanted to have an activity with me but she ended up standing me up because her boyfriend said the at last moment she could not go. The last time I tried to see her she made me drive two hours, and when I got to the place where we were supposed to meet, she was not there. Three days later she called me to apologize because he did not let her go. I told her that she was responsible for standing me up and that I would not trust her again. Then she told me that it was him who was very bad to her. She was a doctor. So, I told her that only a brainless person would be not responsible for her actions. That at least she could call me in my cell phone to prevent me from driving two hours. She could not give me another excuse. I had to stop accepting invitations from her.
I know  another two ladies from this culture. They are both doctors, and they live the same situation. But they say that is the right thing.
There is something in my language that says that everything looks according to the color of your eye glasses.
My question is, are we suffering for something that is normal in other societies? Are we suffering because we were taught that way?
Sometimes I really doubt my self. My mother had to obey my father until he died. My grandmother had to wash by hand all the clothing of his nine brothers. I never heard my grandmother say that my grandfather was an N. The opposite. Everybody complimented him because he did not drink and did not smoke. But he was an N by the standards of today.
Sometimes I do not know what to think. My  grandmother never complained.

[Lupita]

Even more. In that culture there are very few divorces. I have a few friends from there, and they seem happy. Were they taught to be happy that way? is happyness and narcissism a matter of culture?

[Hopalong]

Lupita,
Some cultures and some countries are disordered, imo.
There are valuable, creative, humane and interesting things in all of them.

But some are brutal, some are built on the suppression of another ethnic or religious group, and almost all were built on the oppression of women.

Go backward? To being a 2nd class citizen taking orders?

Not this girl.

I am in anguish at times over the distorted masculinity that has led my own country to behave like a bully in the world. I am also in anguish on a self-annihilating femininity that is just as much a distortion.

I have seen glimpses of healthy confident masculine and feminine. Strong and protective but not abusive masculine. Nurturing and lovely but not submissive feminine.

I figure future generations will know what we can only glimpse. But I do thank fate that I was born to as much freedom as my generation has fought for, for African Americans and for women, and soon I hope, for gay people. That we have parallel currents of hatred and aggression and greed and evil...

I think that's our human challenge. Manage the dark side and support the light. Seems to me the whole world is coming to grips with the truth of that. Culture by culture. We could use a lot more humility in the West. And the East has a grace we lack.

So I just hope for the best from all cultures to ultimately rise one day.

Hops

[WRITE]

yes, there's a lot in culture/ religion/ education/ family/ relationships which supports unhealthy or abusive behaviour. It's frustrating to try and change your own situation to hear comments on family values or as someone once sent me when I announced I was getting divorced, Jesus' words on marriage! But these are skewed interpretations or perspectives when looking deeper.

What is abuse?

the systematic use of behaviors to gain and/or maintain power and control over another

And when that is cultural people still manage to step outside it or stand up for what they think is right. I know people who have done that even at personal risk to their families and grown stronger and more beautiful as a result, even changed their world a little.

Manage the dark side and support the light. Seems to me the whole world is coming to grips with the truth of that. Culture by culture. We could use a lot more humility

absolutely.

[teartracks]

Hi Hops,

Lupita, I hope this doesn't hijack your thread, maybe it will fit since it is about cultures...Anyway, I wanted to ask Hops how her talk went at church today about Darfur.  Wasn't it today, Hops?  Please let us know.

teartracks

[Lupita]

I do not mind at all. Our thoughts take us wherever they take us. Anyway, what is Darfur? I am Latin and in my culture men are the center of the world. So, i did not know about why i was depressed in my marriage until I had the blessing to come to live in the best country of the world. I have the blessing to come to live here in the US of A. Boy, are we lucky!!!!!!! And many people do not know how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be in this wonderful land of freedom. I opened my eyes for the first time here.
I remember my husband took me to a friend's house and left me at the door when she had not arrived yet, with my baby, under the rain. I begged him to let me wait in the car. he said he needed to go. he left. It was a cold town. we got wet and sick. He went to see a lover that was ten years younger than me. I was 28 and she was 18. After 12 years he left her for another 18 years old. Now he is 57 and his wife is 27. He is American. But he could not find the woman he wanted here. If I did not come to America I would have never known. My son has a wonderful future here. He is double major at the university and will have a bright future. Also, he is a very kind, sensitive man. I will never stop thanking this country for educating me, for a reality check, for changing my life. i still have a lot to learn. I am very behind, but will get there. Slowly.

[teartracks]

Hi Lupita,

Darfur?

Well this is about all I know:

1)  Darfur is a West African Province.
2)  Darfur has experienced a  terrible,  genocidal war about ethnic cleansing.
3)  Arab Muslims have pretty much killed off all the Black African Muslims.  Estimates are in the hundreds of thousands.  That's the ethnic part.
4)  The already poor country has been plundered by warlords.
5)  Innocents have been ravaged, raped, starved and killed. 
6)  The powers that be have pretty much left the warring factions on their own to work out their differences.
7)  Heartbreaking.

Perhaps Hops will have interesting facts to add.

teartracks

PS  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict 







   

[Hopalong]

Hi, TT, Lupita...
No facts to add, too drained, but please find them here: www.savedarfur.org

Our minister was brilliant this morning. His sermon was brief (he has a naturally quiet demeanor, so his passion only comes through in what he has to say). What I respect about his writing about confronting devastating realities, is that he honors and names the emotions we are feeling. He tells a story or two to help us visualize (I had been doing this for some weeks)...the children, mainly. And then he says, anger is normally our way of avoiding the pain. Feel this story, he says very quietly, and stay with it for a moment, stay... I'll post it when he finalizes it, usually takes him a while.

I offered a reminiscence about my childhood where the world didn't come to me through a television (we didn't have one until I was 14--I felt deprived then but am now so grateful) but through my father's globe "They are there, and we are here"...and how world felt real to me, not an abstraction, because my father communed so seriously with the globe and maps every night...I thought of the world and its peoples as present. I led a responsive reading from MLKJr, and did two other bits, the Call to Worship and a reading from Thich Nhat Hahn I think I posted on another thread.

I hadn't wept as a worship leader before but did today, because when he asked us to be present to the pain I felt it was my duty. So I just sat and sort of leaked tears, but I didn't lose my part.
I was blowing my nose when it was time to put out the chalice flame, but nobody cared. The congregation seemed very moved and a lot of people said Thank you. I think it's because he is so very skillful at honoring what people feel and iniviting (rather than lecturing) them to move through it together. And for some reason we work together well.

He said he feels we must not try to feel this kind of pain alone, but in community. And I thought how much better I would feel about helplessness to ease suffering if I simply made a ritual time in my life, say for example the hour before church each Sunday, when I wrote letters and do what I can that way. Every letter to a representative is considered the opinion of 1000 citizens, I've heard.

Thank you for asking, guys. I'm wiped out. But I think it helped those who came. (I noticed attendance was down, and I think that's because it's so hard to face Sudan.)

love,
Hops

[Lupita]

Thank you CB. I thought nobody was going to get my point. Thank you CB. You understand what I said. I did not say it was good. No!!!! I did not say it was moral. But it was true. That is the way to was and it still is in many places. The pastor always said that women were made of a piece of bone, to help the men, not of a piece of brain to think. It is in the bible. I am a deep profound religious person, and I still have problems with that. And I have been able to stay alone for 15 years. My school principal, I work in a Christian school, says that God has not provided my a husband because I am not ready to submit to the biblical authority.
CB, do you remember the TV of our age? The Flintstones? She was an obedient housewife, how about Bewitched, she was an obedient housewife, never to be more important than her husband., etc. I am not talking about feminism at all, no. I am talking that we could be happy if we were programed to be happy with what society wants to give us. But if we are in the middle, where we are having a change, but the changes is not completed yet, we are the wounded. I am not am not making any sense. It is like now the children cannot be spanked. Parents can go to jail for spanking children. But we were spanked by our parents. So we were spanked but we cannot do it. We are in the middle of a change.
CB, thank you for understanding, it was probably the language barrier that still does not let me express correctly. But if one persons understand it I am satisfied with that.
I love you all, Thank you all for your writing and reading here.
Love,
Lupita.

[CB123]

My school principal, I work in a Christian school, says that God has not provided my a husband because I am not ready to submit to the biblical authority.

Lupita,

Yeah, I hear you.  I love that kind of two-bit analysis of your "problem". 

All I can say is, if that's marriage--he can have it. I'm never going to return to that system of thinking and if that means no husband is "provided", so be it.  I'll live.

CB

[axa]

Hops,

Thank you for sharing your post on Dafur.  I think the amount of pain in the world is so overwhelming for people that they choose to look the other way.  I see it all the time if I ever talk about Xn/abuse people rationalise as they do not want to look at the reality and all of our responsibility in how the world is.  I recently made a painting with no clear intention and it turned into a projection of my pain and the worlds pain.  It was a very cathartic exercise and also an expression of the pain that the world community experiences...... sounds a bit over the top probably but I felt connected to some universal pain.

hugs,

axa

[Leah]

"Submitting" was something that I had to explore as I struggled with my divorce action ........ my digging in and finding the Truth was liberating.....

"Headship" means that God has called the man to lead his home — and will therefore hold him personally responsible for what goes on in his home. The emphasis is on his personal responsibility and accountability, not on authority and power.”

"Submission" is a word which can be described/defined as willing conciliation.” That means that the wife should be "willing," not coerced. 

Wives are to respect their husbands and Husbands are to be considerate of their wives. 

Both partners should be willing to "put the other’s interests above his/her own” as Philippians 2 describes.

The woman should be willing to submit to her husband not be unwilling or forced.  The man should be a loving, servant leader – accountable and responsible to God and his family. A loving leader leads, he doesn’t manipulate or pressure.

If the husband was 'Christlike' - considerate, loving, kind, protective, providing a loving home - then willing conciliation would just be a natural response out of sheer happiness and delight of being truly loved!

Mutual Love, Respect, Communication and Understanding.

Leah xx

[teartracks]

Lupita, Hops, CB, axa, Leah,

Lupita, I've resigned from giving advice about love and marriage.  I'm not good at it.  But you ask good questions and I think CB and Leah are right on the money.

Hops.  Wish I could have heard your talk.  You leaked a tear?  With your tender heart, I can believe that! 
I almost never get through a church service without crying.  I never get through praying without crying.  You'd think my bladder might be behind  my eyeballs! 

axa.  I don't think you sound over the top.  Thank God for those cathartic experiences.  With all the pain in the world, we might not be able to endure without them.

teartracks