FOREIGN EXCHANGE OF CULTURES

Have you ever imagined how your habits and beliefs might appear through the eyes of someone from a different culture?

I'm getting that opportunity this month as I host two foreign exchange students from Germany, Svenja, 17 and Lisa, 15.

As I hear the girls make phone calls home, I wonder if some of the things that seem logical or comforting to me may seem strange and quirky to them.

I listen as their shy voices quickly change into excited ones -- or in one case, a homesick teenager -- and I imagine what they might be telling their parents.

"Norris over articulates his English. He also smiles and laughs a lot, but I have no idea what he's laughing at."

Whatever it is they are saying, I do know that it would be easy for us all to let our early impressions become discouraging. The truth is that it's very common to allow our culture, our tradition or our language to create a barrier in a way God never intended - I'm determined for us to share our culture for the summer.

I once enrolled in a Spanish class with similar determinations. I wanted to narrow the gap between myself and our Spanish-speaking patients.

My progress was poor, but a Spanish speaking doctor encouraged me by engaging in basic Spanish conversation with me. On one occasion I butchered my response and found it too embarrassing to continue.

"I know the feeling," he told me as he recalled the ridicule he encountered from Americans as he tried to learn English. "Give it up!" they told him. "You'll never be a doctor in America!" they predicted.

"Don't be embarrassed!" he pleaded with me. "In my country we consider it an honor when you attempt to learn our language."

Gaining strength from his encouragement, I later initiated a visit with a Spanish-speaking woman who was awaiting the immanent death of her husband.

After I tried to read aloud the 23rd Psalm using my Spanish 101, the woman's daughter anxiously translated her mother's reaction. "I barely understood a single word of that, but tell him," the woman said with a grin, "I think he knows Spanish in his heart."

We need not know every culture, but we can show a determination to "know them in our hearts." When we demonstrate honor and appreciation toward those who come from different faiths, traditions and nations, we also honor the principles that melted and molded us into a nation.

There's a story from the U.S. Occupation of Japan after WWII when an American serviceman witnessed a Shinto worshipper distribute rice over his ancestor's grave.

The soldier asked the worshiper, "When do you think that your ancestor will eat the rice you left?" The man politely replied, "About the same time that your ancestors come smell the flowers you left."

That story keeps me grounded with an awareness of how we tend to think of our culture or religion as the right one or the only one. Helping to acknowledge and celebrate different beliefs doesn't mean we have to forfeit our beliefs. However, I do think that in a world that is fighting so many differences, it's time we quickly account for our similarities

When I got back from talking the students to their language class, my wife noted a speck of green amidst the healthy crop of gray hair emerging from my shirt.

"What is that?" she asked.

After a momentary self-exam, I announced, "It appears to be breakfast debris."

"That's horrible!" she said. "I hope the girls didn't notice."

"No worries," I replied, "they probably thought it was cultural."

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If you are interested in having Chaplain Norris speak to your organization, church, or library, please contact him at norris@thechaplain.net Please visit his web site at www.thechaplain.net to join his mailing list or order an autographed copy of his book, No Small Miracles.

Soda-free promise hard to keep

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

During our drive home from Fort Collins, Colo., earlier this month, I made a deal with my youngest child, Nicole.

After watching me guzzle diet sodas at every gas station across five states and then frantically racing to the next rest area, I heard a voice from the back seat. From the proverbial mouths of babes, Nicole said, "Dad, you shouldn't drink so much diet soda."

"Yes, honey, I know," came my patronizing response.

"If you'll stop drinking sodas," she promised in what I can only call the real Pepsi challenge, "I'll stop drinking energy drinks."

I was so taken back with her willingness to give up this horribly unhealthy drink, that I grabbed her hand to shake on the deal.

"Deal!" we sang in unison, and I turned to my wife searching for an approving expression.

If you know my wife, you'll find this next part hard to believe, but Mrs. Chaplain gave me the stink eye.

"How long do you think you can keep that promise? You shouldn't set her up for disappointment."

Actually, she had grounds to give me the stink eye. She usually does.

Everyone who knows me knows that Diet Pepsi is part of my food pyramid. Actually, for me, it's more like my food trapezoid. I call it that because I'm trapped in a funny shaped cycle of eating that includes a diet soda with almost every meal.

There seem to be no loopholes in this bargain, because I don't do coffee.

Yup, it's true. I'm a minister and a military officer who doesn't drink coffee. Normally, the military requires officers to play golf and drink coffee, but I have a special waiver of these requirements from the Secretary of the Air Force. Additionally, my Baptist ordination limits my duties to those of a "noncoffee-drinking" minister.

My daughter did what social workers call an intervention. Some people might call her intervention judgmental, but there can be a fine line between judging and intervention.

Judging seeks to place oneself higher than the one being judged. Intervention requires care and love on the part of the intervener.

Sacred texts record a famous case of intervention involving King David. On normal days, Dave was a caring ruler, but on one particular day he slipped and impregnated an officer's wife named Bathsheba. Anxious to have the woman for himself and fearful he'd be discovered, he had the officer killed by placing him in the leading edge of a battle. In a dubious display of shivery, Dave took Bath as his wife.

The thing is, someone did know, a preacher guy named Nathan.

Nate came to David spinning a story about a rich greedy rancher who stole the pet lamb of a poor farmer and had it slaughtered to feed his fat party guests.

Dave was incensed by the story. He told Nat that the fat rancher deserved death.

In one of the most famous comebacks in the Bible, Nate declares to Dave, "Thou art the man!"

Or, loosely paraphrased: "You're the rich rat who stole the officer's only thing of value! You had plenty!"

David repented. And today, his repentance has caused him to be remembered as a righteous king and author of much of the Psalms.

I'm not sure I'll be that lucky.

After our return home, my daughter asked me, "Why are you so grumpy today?"

"Oh, I dunno, maybe it's because I've had no caffeine!" I said pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Dad," she reminded me, "I only said no soda. I didn't say you couldn't have caffeine."

Now she tells me.

I think I'll take an Excedrin. I understand they're loaded with the stuff.

The ABCs of prayer are elementary

The ABCs of prayer are elementary

BY NORRIS BURKES
FOR FLORIDA TODAY

Sometimes when I pull my bedcovers to my chin, I find that the worries of the day come back for an encore. Not only are my thoughts destructive to my sleep, but they tend to disturb the clean-conscience sleep of the woman in bed with me.

When this happens, I turn to what I call my ABC prayers. The prayers follow the Jewish tradition of acrostic prayers: Each word in the prayer starts with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. It's a bit like playing Theological Scrabble.

I have three prayers I pray, but I can only work on one per night. The prayers begin by using one of these three sentences:

1. God, help me to be . . .

2. God, thank you for . . .

3. God, forgive me for being . . .

For instance, "God help me to be Assuring." Or "God, help me to be a Benefit to others.

The second ABC prayer is a version of the old hymn that encourages one to "Count your Blessings and name them one by one. Count your many blessings, see what God has done."

These are prayers in which I thank God for my Children or something intangible like my Dreams. Each letter stands for whatever floats in my mind for the moment. At the risk of sounding like a TV preacher flashing his pearly whites, I'll say that the goal of this prayer is to develop an "attitude of gratitude."

My first and second prayers are meant to be inward and restorative -- they bring sleep quickly.

However, the third prayer -- "God forgive me for being" -- is much like the magic-bullet of medicine or the military smart bombs. This prayer goes past the harmless and seeks the stuff that is rotting and repulsive.

On one recent night, I prayed this prayer fairly quickly until I got to three letters not commonly used -- I, J and K.

The letters slowed my thinking enough to make me search my conscience for what I need to ask. I remembered I'd been with my family on an outing earlier that day, and my wife had commented on the time I was spending on the phone away from our family.

"God, forgive me for being Inattentive. Help me to be attentive and remember where you've placed me in the moment."

Since I had justified my phone usage as important to my business, I found it necessary to also ask God to "Forgive my desire to be Justified. I don't like being wrong. I like being right and just -- sometimes at the expense of my relationships."

The next letter was much harder. Forgive me Lord for Killing." "Forgive me," I prayed, "of the times I've killed -- or at least squelched -- the image of God I saw in others."

This word was inspired by a hard saying from Jesus. Recorded in the modern translation of the Bible called "The Message," it reads:

"I'm telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother 'idiot!' and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell 'stupid!' at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill."

When I use the first two prayers, I'm usually asleep before I'm halfway through. But on this occasion with the forgiveness prayer, I worked through the entire alphabet.

Of course, the next morning I had to explain to my wife how my "praying" kept us both awake.

"Hmm," she said, "Maybe next time you should reverse the alphabet. Start with "Z" and ask God to "Forgive my desire to be so Zealous."

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God has three ways to help us

Occasionally, when someone asks me how I'm doing, I jokingly reply, "Upright and ambulatory."

It's a health care expression describing a patient who is regaining his strength to walk after an illness or trauma.

Those words fit me last week.

My week was packed with preparing to teach, preach and speak for local organizations and churches. We also were planning a family vacation. Suddenly, life interrupted on four different fronts.

My sister was hospitalized with a serious infection.

My brother's wife had a respiratory arrest and is on a respirator with a feeding tube. His business is hurting without her, and he's struggling to pay for his insulin.

Meanwhile, my grandchildren and their parents were evicted.

But none of this measured up to the news that one of our children was assaulted.

While my children are OK, it would be nice if four times could be my annually assigned quota, much the same way I'm limited to buying four crates of soda at the warehouse stores.

Unfortunately, there is no such quota. The same chances that make it possible for you to win the lottery two weeks in a row are the same odds that you'll get a terminal diagnosis following the loss of your only child to a drunken driver.

In the meantime, life wasn't giving me a break from obligations.

I had committed to preach in a local church, but as I entered the sanctuary, I felt very absent from my task. I saw people, but there was nothing about them that made me want to engage them. I may be able to give them a sermon, I thought, but I don't know where I'll get the energy to care.

Physically, I was feeling like I do when I have a head cold. I heard myself breathe and talk, but I sounded like a different person, someone I've never met. It seemed like I was watching and feeling an out-of-body experience.

As I sat on the pew waiting to preach, I studied my notes. The notes rang like hollow answers composed by a confused man who thought he knew all of life's answers. He didn't.

A staff member slipped into the pew with me and I shared the sketchy details of my week.

"I know that you can see me," I told him, "but I don't feel like I'm here."

He stared back at me with knowing eyes and said, "Maybe we should pray."

Gut check with God? Probably not a bad idea.

This is the part in the story you'd likely expect me to write something like, "I prayed, I preached and I prospered."

Not quite.

At first, the prayer felt perfunctory and awkward. Yet, never the less, something happened.

When I started preaching, the words I heard were helpful and hopeful. God stepped in and restored my strength and guided me back into the flow of life.

There is an ancient text in Isaiah 40:31 that says:

But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.

They spread their wings and soar like eagles,

They run and don't get tired,

They walk and don't faint.

In other words, God has three ways to answer our cries for help.

Sometimes, he mounts us on an eagle and flies us over our problems.

Occasionally, we're blessed with enough strength to run right down the middle of our problems.

Finally there are times -- like for me last week -- when God simply gives us the ability to remain conscious and not faint. In other words, God helps us to remain "upright and ambulatory."

That, for me, was a wonderful answer to my prayer.