{"id":106,"date":"2012-03-25T20:10:48","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T01:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/?p=106"},"modified":"2012-03-26T15:06:46","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T20:06:46","slug":"learning-to-think-tribal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/2012\/03\/25\/learning-to-think-tribal\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to think tribal…"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a girl who was raised in America, I\u2019ve always thought of myself as someone who could think outside my American box. I’m<\/em> not one of those sheep who’ve just been completely influenced by their culture. I\u2019m<\/em> not that moldable am I?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/strong><\/em> Baa! Just call me a sheep! I am so Western\/American, it\u2019s not even funny! I value so many inherently American things that other cultures could care less about! (For example, I live and die by the clock and set appointments for specific times and get cranky when people are late because my whole day will be thrown off and\u2026tribal people don\u2019t follow schedules or keep time. The mindset is totally different!)<\/p>\n

My realization of this is just one more reason I am thankful for our training with New Tribes. Not only are Jack and I getting the chance to study Animism (the way Tribal peoples view the world), we are being forced to break down our American worldview piece by piece, so we can truly relate to animistic people on their wavelength.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example of the difference between how a Westerner and an\u00a0Animist\u00a0view the world.<\/p>\n

How would you categorize the following words?<\/strong><\/p>\n

God, rocks, virus, man, bushes, deer, fish, rabbit, woman, demons, angels, cow, whale, grass, germs, sand, and trees?<\/em><\/p>\n

Western:<\/strong><\/p>\n

God, Angels, Demons = Supernatural beings<\/p>\n

Man, Woman = Human Beings<\/p>\n

Whale, Fish = Living beings that dwell in water<\/p>\n

Bushes, Grass, Trees = Plants<\/p>\n

Rocks, Sand = Inanimate things<\/p>\n

Virus, germs = Organisms that cause sickness<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Animist (from an E. African tribe):<\/strong><\/p>\n

God, Angels, Demons, Germs, Virus = Things that can take life<\/p>\n

Man, Lion, Whale= Things that rule their environment<\/p>\n

Women, Cows = Things that are ruled and are convertible for bride price\u201d<\/p>\n

Rocks, Bushes, Fish, Trees, Grass, Rabbit, Deer, Sand = Things of the habitat that are free for the getting<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As you can see there are stark differences in how we see the world (as a woman, I really don\u2019t want to categorize myself with a cow\u2026).\u00a0We are learning that in order to communicate clearly and effectively, we must first discern how they<\/em> categorize the world they live in. And that takes time.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, in our American worldview, time is money. We want to find the fastest most efficient way to finish a task. Microwave it! Yet while I see our task as an urgent one, we must also value excellence. \u00a0There’s no magical short cut, when it comes to teaching in a tribal setting. Spending years on the front-end learning language and culture is imperative!<\/p>\n

Van Rheenan says, \u201cWorldviews are so natural to insiders that they feel all others perceive reality their way.\u201d It\u2019s a fine line to walk, and we will have to rely on the Lord each and every day as we grow in our relationships with the people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a girl who was raised in America, I\u2019ve always thought of myself as someone who could think outside my American box. I’m not one of those sheep who’ve just been completely influenced by their culture. I\u2019m not that moldable am I? Wrong. Baa! Just call me a sheep! I am so Western\/American, it\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":947,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[1161,125,677,6,233],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-training","tag-animism","tag-culture","tag-teaching","tag-tribal","tag-worldview","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}