Do You Really Want to Know?

In our Young Adult Life Group at Northway we have several college students from Korea that attend our class and it is so interesting and fun to learn differences between our two cultures. After all, cultures vary and that makes us unique. One of the most intriguing things I have found is the difference in greetings between our countries. Every morning when I came into class, one of the students would ask me what I had for breakfast. I found this a little odd, but just put it off as one of those things that are different between our types of salutations. I would chuckle and let them know that I hadn’t had time for breakfast, but I would pull out my tasty granola bar showing off my scrumptious morsel. They always seemed so disturbed that I hadn’t eaten a proper meal to jump-start my day. I was confused as to why this meant so much to them, so one Sunday I asked Chris why he used this greeting every morning. He proceeded to let me know that this is how they greet each other in Korea, like here in America we ask, “How are you?” as a common greeting. The difference between these two greetings is that one is actually out of care, while the other is out of convenience. I started thinking about our greeting here in America, and how superficial it really is. What if the lady behind the register at Target asked “How are you today,” and I did not respond with the traditional “Fine.” If I told her instead my pet squirrel had escaped and gotten run over and I was very upset about it…What would she do? Would she know how to respond? Which brings me to this question. Do we really care about the people around us and how they are feeling? Do you think we should take more time to find out about those souls who pass in and out of our daily lives? I think it’s something worth thinking about and deciding if we want to take steps to make this world a better place by actually caring about our neighbors. If you ask how someone is doing, be prepared to really listen to that person.