Cultural Influences

“Culture is considered to be group-specific behavior that is acquired, at least in part, from social influences.”

            When I look back over my life I realize that I’ve been influenced by so many different social settings, and cultural influences. Of course our families are first. Those first years at home dictate how we will think and feel about so many things. Then comes Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and eventually kindergarten, and from there, it sort of gets crazy. Not only are you learning from your teachers, but you are influenced by every text book, and every person sitting in those desks in the room with you. Every time we moved, which was quite a bit, all of these outside influences multiplied. Church was always a big part of our lives and I was definitely influenced by Pastors through the years and Sunday School teachers. If you think of all of the things, situations and people throughout your life that had an impact, it is really pretty amazing.

            Ten years of living in an Eastern European country really threw me for a loop, but had even more of an impact on our children, because it came during their formative years. I’ve talked about this in earlier posts, but will probably repeat it more than once. No matter what “social setting” we are in, we have to be able to come back to an absolute standard for truth. How do we know what is right and wrong?

Mr. Rogers said, “You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There's only one person in this whole world like you. And people can like you exactly as you are.” Really?

My textbooks and teachers from the 6^th grade on up taught that we are evolving, and there is some sort of “missing link” between us and our “ancestors”, the primates. Seriously?

I had a Sunday School teacher in High School that told us that people in our association of churches were the only ones going to heaven. Can we say, lunatic?

I’m telling you that in 45 years I have had A LOT of information coming in and going out! How do we filter it? I suppose I realized that many of the things that I post may have too much of me in them. I never mean to be obnoxious or offensive. I’m sure there are many of you who disagree with much of what I write. The older I get the more I realize that I don’t know much. You know how when you finally get out of your teens and the day comes that you realize your mother wasn’t so stupid after all? Well, somewhere around 40 it hit me that everyone in the world has their own idea of what is true. And guess what? They all think they’re right! But I’ll let you in on another little secret. When two people disagree, they can’t both be right, but they can both be wrongJ Only God is always right and true on every issue, anywhere, all the time.

For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth. Psalm 33:4