The longer that I am here, the more I am starting to observe the differences between the American and the Spaniard way of thinking. I left here thinking that I have never had much in common with the "American way." However, I am discovering I have more in common with my homeland than I thought I did. I am also discovering that I am becoming more and more Spaniard the longer that I am here and I have to tell you, I'm delighted in the person that God is molding me and making me into here. In the meantime, it's amazing how much of what we think is "biblical" when it is actually just tradition.
One small difference I have noticed in thinking is in the way we start talking with people when we first meet an individual. We start off with the typical "Hello! What is your name?" What I've discovered is the next question asked is different between Americans and Spaniards. Americans ask "What do you do?" or if you're in college "What is your major?" If you already know the person, the question usually is "What have you done today?" In Spaniard culture, it is much different. The first question is "How are you?" Now for me, I find this so incredibly comforting about culture here. A friend from here said "You Americans are so concerned with what kind of job a person has instead of the person... All we tend to care about is that they just have a job or are going to school because that's all that's needed to show they're not lazy."
Now this shows me something incredibly significant about culture here. It shows me that Spaniards care more about who you ARE and not what you DO. I find that as an incredible fault in American culture that we only care about what people do and not about how they are. I find it an incredible fault that we give a default answer of "fine" or "good," when all inside of us is falling apart sometimes and others don't know it.
I am not saying that I have the right answer nor to I pretend to be the person that knows everything. My opinion culture maybe wrong. There maybe some of you out there are saying that you are not like that and for those of you out there that are not like, this does not apply to you. However, we all have to ask ourselves if we really care about how we all are doing or do we care about what people do. To me, it's no wonder why people are legalistic when we ask them what they are doing and place more emphasis on that then the heart condition of a human being.
The life of Jesus shows us that he was more concerned with us being and not what we do. He was more concerned about the heart condition and less concerned about the actions of a person. Jesus knew that in the end, what we do would flow out of what we are. Have you ever given much thought to the fact that the fruits of the Spirit are a state of being and not a state of doing? So in turn, I ask, How are you doing? How are you really doing?
