Look Right

1 comments | Jan 19, 03:16 PM | best-of-earl | by Earl Creps

On a cold, rainy Monday in Dublin, Janet and I were guided to the local shopping mall by our host, Wilma Davidson. We walked through a suburban neighborhood that surrounds a lovely park.

All of this is the product of Ireland’s remarkable boom, a financial near-miracle that resulted in its new economic nickname: the Celtic Tiger. Today, the nation wrestles with the same recessionary forces that plague the US. Things are dicey, with real estate values in decline, layoffs rising, and an increasingly fragile banking system.

On the walk to the mall we came to an intersection where Wilma cautioned us to “look right” before crossing. This warning seems counter-intuitive to Americans conditioned for a lifetime to “look left.”

But when people drive on the left, you better look the other way at crosswalks, or the next one may be your last one.

This Irish traffic lesson reminded me of how context changes so much about how we do ministry. In one setting, the appropriate move is to look left, but in another it’s to look the opposite way. So ministry in Berkeley will depend on understanding the setting through relationship with those who live in it.

We finally did arrive at the mall, all five levels of it, and found clearance sale signs everywhere, and a huge video screen featuring Cold Play suspended over a near-empty food court.

Our first stop was Starbucks. I wanted to add to the string of of them I have visited outside the US, reminding me that some things really do cross cultural lines. Many of the brands available in US department and discount stores, for example, are found in their own outlets here.

Fully caffeinated, we walked the mall watching the Irish shop.

We noticed that the mall crowd seemed mostly female, young (twenty and thirty-something), and affluent. White people wearing black clothing.

Shopping may be another one of those human almost-universals.

But then I am seeing all of this from an American perspective. Janet and I are really liking the Irish, but at this point we are observing without really knowing what we are seeing.

There are real benefits to being an outsider. When we give one a hefty check, we call her or him a “consultant.” But that individual can’t forget that being a guest does not confer native understanding.

It is so easy to confuse a couple of Wikipedia articles and two days on the ground with real sensitivity to the situation. No wonder Jesus walked among people for thirty years before John announced his purpose.