Making meaning, and walking humbly

Cameras.  Laptops.  Smart phones.  Facebook.  Instagram.  Snapchat.  Conversation.  Observation. Eyes.  Ears.  Mouth. Nose.  Hands.  Language.  Culture.  History.

I have been thinking alot about interpreting the world lately.  Or making meaning.

It helps that my daily routine for the past five weeks has been experienced in a place where I have very minimal access to the language people around me use to make meaning, to live, and to communicate.  This limited access to language is generally a negative, or an unfortunate thing, I would argue, but it does have a positive side. Recognizing the down side is an important place to start, I think, but not the place to dwell.

One upside of my inability to speak or understand much Hungarian is a heightened use of non-verbal language, I am paying closer attention to context in my environment, in people's faces and body language, and in their tone of voice.  Daily interaction with people on the street, with shopkeepers, and with Hungarians speaking English with me as a second- or sometimes third- or fourth language requires that I look and listen closely beyond their spoken words. This helps me listen more carefully, and think more carefully about words that I use, and how I use them.

In a reading assignment this week from Patty Lane's book Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multicultural World, Lane describes a primary cross-cultural problem that most people encounter, or are guilty of, something called "misattribution."  Misattribution is the common mistake of ascribing meaning to someone else's actions or words based on one's own cultural or experiential lens.  Especially without access to language, I am sure that I am guilty of a broad scale of misattribution as I navigate the cultural landscape of Budapest, both on a tourist level, but more importantly on a professional level.  I have visited a dozen schools in Budapest as I work to place Calvin students in service-learning placements, and I have developed ideas about what is going on in these very foreign places.  In truth, I mostly have no idea.  I have met with numerous academic colleagues from a variety of universities in Hungary, and I am intrigued by their "normal," which I have trouble comprehending even though my conversations with them is exclusively in English.  My students and I regularly make observations about the city, its patterns and activity, and the presence or absence of familiar things and places that demonstrate a tendency toward misattribution.  My favorite example, one that I shared with the group on one of their first days in Budapest, is from one of David Livermore's good books on Cultural Intelligence - Livermore shares the story of a high school student's journal, where he/she proclaims that "airplanes don't take off in India when it is raining."  Based on his/her one experience of a runway delay, when it happened to be raining, this student decided that the people of India as a whole had not figured out the uniquely American skill of flying airplanes in the rain.  A humorous tale, but one that helps me remain humble in my proclamations of understanding while living in Hungary.

I have a StreetFest t-shirt with the well-known words from the prophet Micah on it, "Walk humbly, do justice, and love mercy."  I was wearing it last week when a man stopped me, (clearly a tourist, who turned out to be a judge from Queensland) he wanted to know what I thought of the message on my shirt.  We had a pleasant exchange, and he shared with me that this verse is the main theme of the Christian Legal Society in Queensland, and I shared with him why I appreciate the prophetic words from Micah for their reminder to us of the importance of walking humbly.  This is the posture that I think best for making meaning while studying, or teaching abroad.

The tools for making meaning are all around us, and some of them include the list above - the internet has provided access to other people's lives in ways that are incredible, instantaneous, dangerous, rewarding, devastating, and fun, all at the same time.  Our five senses should all be involved, too, of course.  Navigating this meaning-making landscape can be overwhelming, gratifying, and exhausting. Knowing when to turn on, when to turn off, how to pay full attention to the human beings right next to you, without losing contact with loved ones on the other side of the world requires a set of skills that takes time, and humility, to develop.

That's enough for now.  It is time to go visit with friends.  In person.  Peace.