Culture

When I first heard of the word "culture" I immediately thought about the culture of where I grew up. However, that is not really what we talked about this week. We talked about our own family cultures. Whether it was our religious values and practices, the culture of our grandparents and the community which our families currently live.

Culture can comprise of attitudes and behavior of a social group. I definitely noticed the culture in my own home a lot more when I moved out of my home and went to college. I also saw it as I moved to California and was surrounded by more people of diverse backgrounds. I saw things that I like and things that I wanted to avoid.

Two aspects of my culture that I would like to carry with me to my future family are : acceptance and perseverance. My family is pretty diverse and we are very open to a lot of people and circumstances. We have a natural attitude to let people in to our lives. I enjoy that about my family because I can see how that makes me love and see people for who they are or could be. Perseverance is huge in my family. We experience heartache and tragedy a lot like most families. However, because of our knowledge of Christ and our love for each other we get through the darkest times together. Even for the people in our family who have struggles with faith we lift them and help them. My maternal grandmother is one of the strongest people I know. As she tells us her experiences of loss, heartache and joy I learn so much resilience from her. Of course we all have something we want to improve in our family culture and mine is communication. For the most part we do well. Yet, I know maybe sometimes we can be passive and that creates tension. A good way to work on communication is increasing love and honesty. Because when people feel your love they want to change. Maybe not right away but real love can help. Something I am doing personally is reaching out and working on my current relationships. I know I can do my part and start the pattern now that could continue on. It is true we can be influence easily but being an influence is more difficult. But it is not impossible!

Tradition is an intergenerational pattern that comes from generation to generation. A tradition that I know is good in my family is that family is important. We all can get caught up in our own lives but at the end of the day we know we can have a family to come home to.  We have a family that we can grow and learn with. I feel my parents emphasizing to me the importance and I want that with my future family. I want them to know they have someone or even a lot of people standing by them.

As we notice the cultures in our families it can help us strengthen our relationships in our families. Also when we hear or get to know other people's culture it helps us to see them and understand them better. I love hearing about people's culture. It shows how diversity can be so amazing.