Many people that I know have not yet had the privilege of
meeting my fiancé and have not heard the story of how God brought us together.
For some, all they know is what they see—that I’m engaged (rather quickly by
modern American standards) to a Palestinian Arab man, and that realization
brings with it a host of questions and preconceptions about what that means. So
in this inaugural post in the new Cross-Cultural category on An Iris Awaits, I seek to begin telling
the story. In doing so, I am cognizant of the fact that my audience is no
longer strictly American, and it is my deepest desire to share honestly while
not being unnecessarily offensive to readers from any background.
For those who are new to the blog and might not be used to
my writing style, it will be helpful to know that I often describe mindsets in
such a way that seems to indicate I agree with them only to turn around and
show why I do not. In some cases thought patterns that I used to hold are
described in present tense as if I still hold them, in order to help readers
feel what it was like to inhabit such a point of view before leading them to
see why I shifted to hold a different one.
So with that groundwork laid, let’s begin. . .
September 11, 2001, was my introduction to Arabs. As a
nine-year-old girl, I saw faces on television— faces of the men who attacked my
country and faces of men and women who were celebrating the attack. Before
then, I have no recollection of ever seeing people of Arab descent. My
introduction to Arabic was of a similar nature. I only ever heard the language
spoken in the context of angry chants directed toward my country and its people
as loud tirades of unknown words pushed their way through the English
translation overlays on the news. While terrorism does its job of effecting
fear, the media often does its part as well, and suddenly in my country Arabs
were looked upon with suspicion and were lumped together into one
category—terrorists. In the general thinking, the entire Middle East became
synonymous with Arab and Arab with terrorism (spoiler alert—neither of those is
accurate), and that was my understanding of the world as a child.
Now, nearly two decades later, I find myself in love with
and engaged to an Arab man, learning to read and speak Arabic, and about to
move to the Middle East, a place much more beautiful than the media let on. So
what changed? What happened to break the walls of distrust and fearful
prejudice that subconsciously had been built inside me as a child? What
happened to ease the internal tightening of the chest and stomach that came
with hearing the Arabic language? What happened to cause my heart to swell with
love for the Arab people?
Well, as with most things, there’s a story. . .
A year after 9/11, my family moved from one southeastern
state to another. Although the move was within the same region of the same
country, I still experienced pretty significant culture shock. To move twelve
hours away, from the mothership of the “South” to the heart of the “Mid-South,”
only to be called a “Yankee” was perplexing to say the least. To find that
people ate different food, shopped at different grocery store chains, spoke
with a different accent, and endured very different climate and weather
patterns enrolled me in the school of learning how to adapt, how to be proud of
where I had come from but still to embrace where I was then. I was happiest
when conversations turned to talking about my new culture and sharing about my
home culture with my new friends.
Over the first few years in our new home, my family had
occasion to develop friendships with people from all over the world—Indonesia,
the Philippines, Korea, Malawi, Russia, Moldova, Brazil. I began to pick up
tidbits of information about their countries and cultures, and I loved
connecting those tidbits to my growing knowledge of the world’s geography that
I was gaining through my schoolwork. I also met several cross-cultural couples
who continued to expand the awareness I had of cross-cultural marriages that
had begun in my previous home with knowing of my best friend’s grandparents who
were an Irishman and a Filipino woman.
In high school I traveled out of the United States for the
first time and experienced an international culture. I was learning Spanish in
school and, with this trip to Brazil, was exposed to Portuguese as well. I
loved being able to learn about new languages, even if it was only to speak a
few words. It was like being able to break a code and understand a secret
message. My mind was also opened to the variety that exists in the world, to
realize that things we take for granted, say, at the grocery store, are not
always available in other countries, but at the same time to realize that this
reality goes both ways. There are treasures that other countries hold that
America is deprived of.
Fast-forward to college, and I had the opportunity to travel
outside the country once again, this time to England to learn at L’Abri. Once
there, I spent 10 days living, working, relaxing, and studying with people from
all over the world including Canada, the Netherlands, Brazil, England, and
Australia. One night in particular stands out when a Dutch couple invited me to
their flat for Swiss hot chocolate. We spent a couple of hours talking about
our countries, asking and answering questions that we had always been curious
about regarding each other’s home. It was invigorating, and I loved every
minute of it. I learned so much that week in so many areas of my life, but the
one thing that is relevant to this post was a conscious awareness of how much I
enjoyed learning about other cultures and helping others learn about my own.
All of this contributed to the broadening of my perspective,
to the priming of my heart and mind and personality to embrace intercultural
connections, but you might have noticed that one people group has been
conspicuously absent in the story thus far. That’s right—Arabs.
I went to a Christian college where we corporately attended
chapel services three times a week. Sometimes these were like church services
with worship music and a sermon, but sometimes we heard from guest speakers on
a variety of topics. One chapel in particular is forever burned in my memory.
The speaker that day was from Bethlehem. He was a Christian from Bethlehem. And
he was a Palestinian (Arab) Christian from Bethlehem. Those are three
identifiers that my brain had never put together before. But there he was, in
the flesh, talking about his experience as a follower of Christ in the town
where Christ was born and where there presently exists politicoreligious and
racial tension of a high degree.
You know those movies where the scene is playing out, and
then suddenly everything in the periphery blurs out as the camera zooms in
quickly to focus on the main character as he has an earth-shattering
realization? Yeah, that’s what it felt like. I felt in the core of my being
that I had been thinking of the world all wrong, and it shook me.
And with that, I’ll have to leave you hanging to find out
why next time on An Iris Awaits.
[Read Part 2 here.]
PC: Pamela Hollis. Used with permission.
