(picture - Aunty and Uncle's temple in their house)Cultural Notes from This Morning Session: (quotes from Anne)
Me: Do you give things to your god?
Anne: Yes…
Me: What do you give?
Anne: rice, milk, flowers
Me: Why do you give things?
Anne: To keep bad things from happening.
Me: Does it happen sometimes that God likes what you give and doesn’t like what you give?
Anne: Yes…sometimes he is happy with it, sometimes he is not.
Me: How do you know?
Anne: If he is happy, then everyone will be okay, if he is mad or doesn’t like it then someone in the family may get sick, and maybe the doctor and even medicine won’t make him better- then we know that God is mad or doesn’t like the gift.
Me: If I have two jugs of milk- one is okay, but one is really good…does it matter which one you give to your god?
Anne: No, not at all- you’re just going to offer it and then take it back- he isn’t going to drink it because he’s not really there.
Hmm… “he’s not really there” – does she realize what she just said?
I feel a renewed burden for these people we live among. I feel even more today than before a real urgency to get these people these stories. I feel like how can they think these things and believe this? And then realize, they don’t know anything else…why wouldn’t they believe and follow what has been set before them for so many generations?
Oh, how hard it would be to live in a state of mind that bad things happen because God is angry, or that my offerings can make God happy…and yet- I do live like that most of the time. I do have the same mentality that if I bring good things to God, he will bless me. If I do not do good things or what He wants of me, then he may be upset. Yet, because of Jesus- God’s “happiness” doesn’t depend on me. He is happy with me and what I do- good or bad. Well, I mean, he doesn’t want me to sin and of course, I think he is “happy” when I please Him…but He sees us through Jesus and therefore sees us a perfect…
But you know what- I just realized their thinking of things doesn’t make sense to me. For example, if they give their god some milk (not the best milk, but just some milk). They said it doesn’t matter if it’s the best or not because you would just take it back anyway. So, say they give bad milk- then take it back…their god probably wouldn't like that offering since it was bad milk? Or, suppose they gave the best milk, but then something bad happened…what could they have done to avoid that? Is it just dependent on….say, the weather? I mean, is there any way to know what is pleasing to their god and what’s not?
Anne did say that you give different gifts to different gods…But, what if you were meaning to do the right thing, but accidentally gave Shiv some flowers, when he was really expecting rice? Oh man…to live having no idea if God would be pleased with me or not…to live not knowing which gift to give to which god, or if that god would only look at the gift- and not the motive of my heart. Even if I had right and pure motives, but unknowingly gave the wrong gift, or in someway displeased the god. I don’t think I could live like that- how can these people?
I guess, they just accept it…It’s something I noticed even working in the school for my student teaching- the way of education here is to accept everything you’re taught. Do not question your teacher- that would be disrespectful. Do not think for yourself, you obviously don’t know any better than these people who have gone before you and know more than you do.
I think that these barriers can only be broken if there is some major reason that causes them to wonder or really question what they believe- as long as life is going along as it should be…there would be no reason to change…Perhaps this is obvious; in any culture- if your life is “perfect” then why change it by trusting in something you don’t know much about…
Something needs to happen here- whether it is just individually, people realizing that there is no real peace in the gods they follow. Or if their lives need to have some harm come to them in spite of all the offerings they give…They need to realize what they believe in isn’t working, and will never work…and hasn’t work for those previous generations… What has to happen for them to realize that?
Wow…Father, please do your work- whatever that might be, however that might be. Through personal relationships with people, through these stories, through some dramatic intervention or some hardship, or some blessing that comes and is something beyond what their gods are capable of. Something that would show them there is something more- even if they don’t understand it all the way at first, but just something that will break them from their bondage of accepting the traditions. Something that will cause them to question what they believe, and really wonder about it- perhaps they will have to research it more to find out that it’s false. Perhaps they will start immediately looking for other ways…I’m sure it will be different for different people- but please, hurry and bring these people to you, however you desire for that to happen…
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Our session went well this morning. Our session went well- we finished the Fall, and started Cain and Abel- talked about half of it. We hope to finish talking about it next Tuesday and record it- thus we’ll have three stories….That doesn’t mean we have 3 stories completed. We still have to work on back-translations, sending them to be consultant checked, re-recording, testing them with groups of people, re-recording them if there is anything confusing in them or that needs to be changed. So there is still a lot of work to do before we can really say “we have 3 stories”- but still, it would feel good to have that done- especially since we leave on Wednesday for the village for a week and no storying stuff will really happen during that time.
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