Bible Belt

Our family recently made the entire loop around the Bible Belt. It’s been a great trip visiting family and thus far having successfully kept my Christian Standard Bible and Bono biography under the radar. Anything beyond the King James can lead to an interrogation. I’m joking. Sort of.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Deep South not unlike a sibling relationship growing up. My sisters and I would get after it all day long but let someone else try to pull that stunt and there would be blows. It’s a unique culture that often blisters the backside of unbelievers but all with good conscience. A conscience is better than no conscience. Here, there is a vivid line between right and wrong; a moral consciousness between who’s accepted and who’s not.

As a rule follower who didn’t like following the rules, I spent a significant amount of my upbringing discontented. The rigidity of it all made the boundaries unquestionable, and like a cookie cutter, clearly delineated between what’s in and what’s out. And the what had a way of overshadowing the who.

At 18, I took the exit when I had the first out. First to the “big city” of Birmingham and eventually to the Wild West. Maybe not the Wild West anymore, but Dallas. A city that has more ingredients than Heinz 57. It’s one of those places where you can find what you’re looking for.

I didn’t see a hard right coming when we arrived in Norfolk, but here we are beginning our 5th year. I’m still coming to know Norfolk, but I am intrigued by its culture. It’s a place that’s a little South and a little North. It’s a little big and a little small. If not the Bible Belt, it’s at least a pair of suspenders.

It’s not inherently better to experience different cultures. Jesus, beyond a short stint in Egypt, never traveled beyond the small radius of Capernaum. But for me, experiencing different cultures has been a grace of God. As one who doesn’t easily accept the status quo, I’ve needed a bit more data points to better understand life. My conclusion, people are people and there is beauty to be found wherever we are. From the Deep South to Dubai, people and cultures bear the mark of their Creator.

There is something within us that longs to receive acceptance. To be brought into the circle and cultures take shape around that aim. There are beautiful aspects to any culture and there are challenging aspects. Culture is a collection of human customs with the operative word being human.

We can be hard on one another, particularly when we bypass the acceptance that God has freely extended. Even when we have accepted God’s grace, we still mess up the extension of that same grace to others. It’s a human flaw that seems to be culturally consistent.

I pray that my heart continues to be malleable to God’s grace. I want to be a better conduit of God’s grace to those around me. I too have a flaw to see past the who and fixate on the what. To have the solutions rather than a willingness to ask questions. I want the desire to see people and appreciate them even when our perspectives don’t align.

God help us all to see the beauty even as we step into brokenness for the sake of Christ.