Protecting Your
Traditions
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Being content. What a
blessing! Right? When past decisions and actions provide for your needs and
there are no problems worth tackling, you have it made. Learning something new means
encountering new challenges. It also means struggling to solve new problems. Why look for
trouble? Just keep the old ways. If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
For a conservative minded community
preserving their values and expectations means peace. Pride accompanies such a lifestyle choice. Their success gives rise to loyalty.
What happens when new ideas or people infiltrate that group?
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The Orthodox Community
Life Church in my novel, Baggage burdens.
discovered that sometimes welcoming strangers brings unexpected challenges. There
was no trouble accepting Mike when he moved into their farming community. He
remained on the fringes of the group. Adjusting to young Joseph, Mike’s nephew,
proved to be more unsettling for the church and Joseph. In the long run his
influence was beneficial for those with an open mind. Joseph came to understand
and accept their values and behaviors. In an unthreatening way he used their
values to question some of their actions. Others dislike his disciplining effect.
Jill’s arrival to the
community created turmoil. She chose to live a set of values that served her
needs. Her alternative lifestyle was received as an insult. A question arose––whose way was better, hers or theirs? Loyalty to
traditional ways leads to tension. She was unwelcome. Jill's disturbing their
peace proved accepting strangers is unwise.
The examples that follow
show personal and communal pain. What was the cause of the pain––allowing
strangers to join the community? Expecting complete adherence to the host’s
lifestyle? Being unable to accept differences? Can the context in which these
examples occur shed light on how tension could have been reduced?
Joseph
holds both Jill’s hands. “I’m afraid I might end up like Uncle Mike. I’ll die
alone, unmarried, without children.”
Jill
shook her head. “No, you’re too nice a person.”
“So
was Uncle Mike. You see I live in a community, no near a community, that while
they accept me, I know they don’t trust me. They don’t want me near
their daughters. It’s like they’ve spread the word that I’m a leper or
something. I attend all their social events, and I go to their church, but
there is always a multitude of chaperones around the girls when I’m around. I’ve seen that’s not the case with
other young guys.”
“Jill.
I want you to know that I haven’t forgotten the suggestion you made about us
moving to Camrose. As you can imagine, it is a difficult decision for me to
make.” He sees Jill nodding. “You do still want to move, don’t you?”
“Yes,”
Jill answers simply and without hesitation.
“Perhaps
you can help me again appreciate why it is so important.” He faces
Jill.
Jill
thinks for a while. When she speaks, her words come out in a calm confident
voice, as if she anticipated the request. “When we went out for dinner, our
fourteenth anniversary, I asked you to explain why you decided that Daniel
should continue going to the church school. Remember?”
Joseph
nods.
“You
said what makes Daniel happy is being with his friends.” Again Jill waits for
Joseph to nod indicating he remembers. “That same idea applies to me. I don’t
have any friends at your church. Oh, they tolerate me, but they aren’t my
friends.
“Don’t you think I
haven’t heard the whispers about me being head-strong, not knowing my place,
feeling I’m too good for them. I’ve heard it all.” Decibels rise with Jill’s
anger. I know they don’t like the fact that I took courses to improve myself
and that I’m homeschooling my girls. I’ve tried to explain to them why I want
to do it. The next week I hear the same people griping about the same thing. I
might as well have been talking to a wall. If they think I’m going to change to
suit them, they’re dead wrong. No one is going to control me.”
haiku capsule
peace, stability
a stranger, a new lifestyle
Whose way is better?
Next blog: Baggage Outweighs Reason
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