Love Your Neighbor

Currently Listening to: Colored People by DC Talk

I live on a pretty amazing street in Oronogo, Missouri. Go ahead, try and pronounce it. Though the town might have a funny name, its a great place to live.

I'm pretty certain 98% of our community looks and talks exactly the same. Well, maybe not on my street. We've only got about a dozen homes but in that mix is a Filipino family, a Mexican family, two African-American families, a grandparently couple, a single dude who built most of the homes and a couple other families. Oh and then there is that one house that always has 15 cars out front and nobody has ever met anybody that lives there. Its like they are having a perpetual house party but they never make any noise

Last Sunday we had our street Christmas party. Our family wasn't able to stay long but while there a pretty sad conversation happened. It's the type of thing that happens a lot but thanks to my friends at CIY Engage, they have exposed my mind to some better thinking and I'm trying to be more aware in these situations.

It's called CQ. It stands for Cultural Intelligence and if I were to give my own summary, it would be a way of thinking and acting that allows us interact with all people, both here in the States and around the world in a way that is affirming, respectful and honoring. The author says it this way, "Root your view of the other in the imago dei."Now, I don't "get" this yet and I'm not killing it as an ambassador of CQ. I am becoming more aware of things and that's a start but I will confess on the little self test in the book, I didn't do so well. In fact it looked a lot like my grades in Kindergarten. The first time I took kindergarten. But stick with me on this.

What would happen if every person I came in contact with, I chose to treat as a brother or sister, as someone with God's image sewn into their very being? What if we were able to step back just far enough that we didn't expect everyone and every place to think, look and act like us and where we are from?

So back to my story...

I was sitting at the table with a few of my neighbors eating my body weight in the finest of meats and cheeses when the conversation turned to the country of Mexico. Our Mexican neighbors were there, me and two other people. One of them made the comment "I've been to Tijuana and that place is horrible. No offense, but the streets were narrow, it stunk and I felt like I was going to get robbed by every person I walked past."

As a sidebar here, anytime you have to preface a statement with "No offense, but..." you are probably showing little to no CQ. Apologizing beforehand does not excuse being rude. Anyway...

Imagine you are in a foreign country and somebody makes the statement to you, "Hey, I've been to the U.S. before!" Now imagine that the only place they had been would be a place here in the States you are ashamed of. They go on in front of a whole group of people to talk about that place and all the things they hated about it. Not cool. How unfair is it to assume all of the U.S. is like that place and every American is exactly like the people in that city they visited.


The conversation went on to how when this guy was in the Marines they headed down from San Diego for a weekend of fun in Mexico but only stayed for about 3 hours. At that point my Mexican neighbor said, "Yeah, Tijuana is not very pretty. Most people only see border towns and assume our whole country is like that but its not."

I agree. A few years ago I led a trip to Ensenada Mexico and we drove that same route down I-5 from San Diego into Tijuana and then down the Baja coast. I will say this, it was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever made. The Baja coast is amazing. Yes, TJ isn't my idea of metropolitan beauty either but nonetheless, its fascinating and its one small part of a diverse country full of amazing people and some beautiful landscape and culture.

A few days ago my wife was talking with our neighbor. She shared with Ang how hard it is to live here in the States at times. They have been victims to way too many stereotypes and condescending comments. Turns out they don't enjoy all the stereotypes we put on them, they feel uncomfortable with all the comments that are made and she even said they keep their house as clean as possible at all moments, almost obsessively just to try and debunk the myths that American's have about them. They wish they could relax just a bit more and be themselves and not worry so much about what everybody thinks.

Can you imagine that?

So here's to some CQ. Here's to trying to remember that everybody is unique and that's awesome. Here's to remembering that not everybody thinks and acts like we do and that's even better. Here's to seeing the divine in others and trying to do that first. Here's to suspending judgment when we meet people.

I know, its easy and we've been conditioned to do it since we were young. We see a situation and immediately decide tons of stuff about it. That might work on Wall Street but its horrible as a Christian.

And here's to not taking mission and service trips to remind ourselves of how lucky we are. Here's to not taking trips that make the others feel like crap.

At the risk of belaboring the point, Livermore shares a story of a church that wanted to give toys to "underresourced kids". It's a nice thought. They wanted to buy the gifts and then hand them out. The leader of the recipient ministry said, how about I take them and we sell them at a greatly reduced rate so the dads could buy them for their sons. The church said no. Actually they said, "Oh, I don't think we're interested in that. Every year the highlight of this program has been watching the look on our kids' faces as they had that gift to a kid who otherwise wouldn't receive one."

The leader went on to say this, "I really wasn't interested in exploiting the men in our community so the guys at that church could have a nice bonding experience with their kids. All I need is one more message to the kids in our community that says, "Guess what? This six-year old white kid got you a better gift than your schmuck of a father did."

Here's to sharing the joy of Christmas in a way that doesn't humiliate others. Here's to finding creative ways to show kindness with others rather than to them.