As I sit here listening to the band “Iron and Wine”, a current folk/shoe-gazing artist, I hear songs about gentle living in the countryside, long walks in the woods, keeping animals, simple country romance. I previously this day was listening to Denzel Curry, a Broward county rapper, lamenting the injustices of race relations and inner city violence. Neither of these worldviews are familiar ground to me. I live in middle class white America, small town, Protestant Dutch world.
In all of this I have to wonder why. Three very different worlds, all in America, all having a shallow similarity, in that they all function, to some degree, upon a Christian worldview. The folk singer sounds content, yet somewhat sad. The rapper sounds angry, yet badly wanting to make things right. And my cultural situation is that of indifference, not on my part, but within the culture itself. All that seems to be considered is that of personal contentment and “keeping up appearances.”
It strikes me that these people are what they are because of the families into which they were born and the race into which they were born, the economic status and the point in history. All of which were imposed upon them. Also, the people that raised them, the choices made by those people and the choices made for themselves (based upon the worldview with which they were inculcated in their youth).
I wonder how many people stay where they are, simply because it is all they know, and it is all they can comprehend to be. We can look at something else, outside ourselves, outside our life experience and think that possibly it is superior/inferior to our current state, but it may not be. Or it may be in our best interest to consider that which is different than our experience and adjust our reality.
My point is this. We all live in and function based upon what we know. But what we know is built upon genetics, upbringing and our immediate culture. We should not limit ourselves to these things though. We need to learn to look around, ask questions about why we do what we do and try to understand the situations of others, without judgment.
