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Reasons to be thankful, multiculturalists
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Posted by: Knight_Kadosh

During the pressure and often-hectic pace of the holiday season, I pondered what to be thankful for this past year and the forthcoming year, after some lengthy considerations, I resolved this list.

In a season when we all tend to look for the small reasons to be thankful for, I found a few regarding my own current life situation, perhaps some may even agree with me. Since Love is generally the motivating factor in our decisions of marriage, I tried to list some other reasons and benefits of an intercultural marriage. Through meeting Elena and the promise of our potentially fulfilling life together, I realized some challenging changes for me personally. I am thankful that we are being given the opportunity to increase our self-knowledge by our being forced to examine and define our own values, ideas, and prejudices, that is, self-growth. This in turn will hopefully lead to our being richer and less parochial, i.e., narrow-minded people. How exciting to be given this unique opportunity to develop multiple cultural frames of reference, i.e. cultural relativism, through exposure to valid alternatives. Intercultural marriages, by their very intimate nature, would seem to result in tremendous personal growth. With anticipation I look forward to the greater variation and vitality in our lifestyle because of cultural exposure. I see this as an enriching, interesting and unpredictable way of living, giving us access to a new way of seeing the world, promising to keep life from getting too monotonous. Together, I feel as though we are gaining an international identity, but at the same time, clearly not belonging, i.e. our mono-cultural peers. Perhaps some of the children may even become true multiculturalists with a global worldview, being naturally sensitive to the nuances of different cultures. Perhaps we are anticipating the future, a world in which cultural, racial, or religious differences would not be a cause for divisiveness. Our underling hopes may be a sign of the breakdown of ethnocentrism and misunderstanding, which end so often in warfare. For me, the feeling beyond Love, as the main marital motive, is a sense of being a pioneer, in a kinder new world order, with understanding. Behind our individual personalities there is also timing, chance and availability, and I for one am thankful that all three where present so that the opportunity could present itself, a propinquity factor possibly. Ultimately, within reason, there is no right or wrong approach; it is the one that works for each couple or marriage respectively. A valid concern is that by not responding appropriately we become misunderstood for not caring or loving. Perhaps, with intercultural marriages or relationships the handling of such things as, sadness, frustration, anger, grief, worry, loneliness, conflict, illness, or even death, is in the risk of our interpreting the response or behavior of our soul mate by our own conditioned cultural perspective, and acting on it inappropriately, through misunderstanding. The ability to see the world as one partner sees it, to understand life from the others vantage point, to empathize with this other point of view, to allow for it and meet it halfway may be the true secret to overcoming the obstacles of a successful intercultural marriage.

Emotions play a large role in determining not only what we say and how we say it but also what we hear. If I am upset, angry or frightened, I will interpret what you say in the light of my own emotional state.
“Roger Fisher and Scott Brown”

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.
“Laurens Van der Post”

Merry Xmas all,

Luke 2
14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!"

1 Corinthians 13
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Be safe,

Brian