A fairly normal January Monday morning

Yesterday was a pretty normal Monday morning. Here's what we got up to, when we finally got out of the house mid morning:

• We headed up the street to our local stationery shop to buy some envelopes. At a local stationers, you don't buy packets of envelopes, you ask for the exact amount of envelopes that you'd like - five small envelopes and one slightly bigger one. 

• After continuing via a cash point, we bumped into an English friend on the street. We love that we regularly run into people we know in our local area!

• Next stop was the small bakers to pick up some poğaca as a snack for the park. Poğaca is a type of savoury bread/pastry that can be found at every bakery here. It's traditionally eaten at breakfast time, or as an afternoon snack - or pretty much at any time really - and goes really well with a glass of Turkish tea. They often come with different fillings (soft Turkish cheese, slightly harder Turkish cheese, black olives, etc.) or can be plain.

• Once we had our poğaca it was only a few minutes walk to the park. As it's the middle of winter, the park (more a playground to be honest, as there's no grass to play on) was fairly empty. A little girl and her grandfather were feeding the pigeons so J gleefully chased and scattered all the birds that had gathered to eat.

• And via a very quick trip into a tiny supermarket, we headed (very slowly) home for lunch.

After various coughs, colds etc. we're enjoying getting out and about again. Or rather, the boys have not yet fully got rid of their colds but we've all got cabin fever so we're returning to routine and going out to the park anyway. I'm currently ignoring all the comments made by random people who look at S and say he's ill, because he has a runny nose!

Poğaca - yum! Although this photo makes them look giant, when they're not *that* big

Cultural logs and specks

This week I was talking with my language helper about the concept of honour and shame in Turkey. 

To give a very brief explanation, cultures and societies can be understood through three different lenses: justice/guilt, honour/shame and fear/power. A member of a society strives to avoid guilt or fear or shame and aspires to the opposite value of justice (innocence) or honour or power, depending on their cultural worldview.

Western cultures can be primarily understood through a justice/guilt mindset that applies on quite an individualistic level (though there are elements of both honour/shame and power/fear in Western cultures too) - a sense of right and wrong is deeply ingrained. A person's standing depends on how guilty or innocent they are perceived (or perceive themselves) to be. We can see this clearly in children - from a very young age Western children tend to have a very strong sense of justice ("that's not fair!" or "I didn't do it") and are usually taught to follow the rules, with the warning that if they break the rules there will be a punishment. We see this in presentations of the good news as well - "imagine you are in a courtroom, everything wrong you have done is presented to the judge, but although you are guilty, the judge decides that his own son should take the punishment instead of you!". 

A fear/power culture tends to be found more often in animistic contexts (often tribal contexts). Fear of evil or harm (often originating from supernatural spirits) leads people to seek power over the spirits (and so in doing so, often over other people) through magic rituals, incantations, curses etc.

An honour/shame mindset usually goes with a more "collectivistic" culture. A person's standing is based on their level of honour. Actions that do not meet society's expectations bring shame. Shameful acts committed by a person not only bring shame on that individual but also bring shame on their family too. Actions can be taken by that individual or another member of the group (family) unit to restore honour.

To be clear, most cultures and societies combine elements of all three worldviews but will typically have one predominant one. These three worldviews are not 'right' or 'wrong' in and of themselves, they are just different ways of looking at the world. As mentioned, most Western countries are predominantly justice/guilt based. However, Turkey is more honour/shame based. Of course it has justice/guilt and fear/power elements too, but honour/shame is prevalent. 

To give an example, I was watching a Turkish drama the other day in which a senior police officer was berating some junior officers for a serious mistake they had made. The strongest way in which the officer could reprimand his subordinates was to call them a Turkish word which translates as 'dishonourable' or 'without honour'. There is no equivalent in English that I can think of that conveys the depth of emotion attached to it - it is not a swear word but it's a very serious term to use. As the watcher, you are meant to feel just how angry that officer was. Calling someone that in the street would be more than likely to start a fight. The honour/shame concept is important in Turkey!

That's a very brief introduction to the three worldviews concept - if you want to know more, I'd recommend googling. There are lots of resources available. 

So I was talking with my language helper about honour and shame in Turkey. I love this country but, as with any country where the honour/shame mindset can be found, sometimes (illegal) actions are committed to restore honour that both my language helper and I struggle to make sense of.

I've been pondering this the last few days, trying to de-Westernise my brain a little bit. As a foreigner here, coming with a Western mindset, I cannot fathom the depth to which honour and shame is embedded into a person's psyche and into society here. It would be very easy to pass quick judgments on this culture or make comparisons to a Western culture.

But as I thought more, I realised that before I call out the speck in the eye of Turkish culture, perhaps I'd do better thinking about the log in the eye of British culture. It's easy to be blind to our own cultural failings or compare every culture we experience to the benchmark of the culture we know best. Yet it didn't take long to start making a mental list of the brokenness of British culture. Over 180,000 unborn children aborted in England and Wales in 2016 alone. A culture in which girls and young women are bombarded with the message that their worth is based on their sexuality while the message broadcast to boys and young men is that women are merely objects for sexual gratification, to be used and discarded at will. A culture in which people pursue their own self-fulfilment and happiness regardless of the cost to those around them. 

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

The good news is that there really is good news! To look at cultural logs and specks is profoundly depressing. But we can lift our eyes up, to someone who was stripped of his clothes and in his nakedness was shamed so that we can have our honour restored. Who came to destroy the work of the devil and conquered every power, with that mighty power now at work in us. And yes, one who took the punishment we deserved upon himself so that we, the guilty ones, might be declared innocent. This truly is good news! And it is relevant and sufficient for every culture.

Ethical living in Turkey - clothes

Edit: Just to say that if you happen to have gifted any of us any clothes, we are very grateful for them, regardless of where and how they might have been bought! Friends and family have been very kind in giving us clothes, among other things, over the last couple of years and we really do appreciate them!

I've been thinking recently about how we as a family can live in a more ethical, 'green' and sustainable (while also being realistic and practical!) way. In some ways, living in an environmentally-friendly way is much harder here, in other ways it is easier. It's a topic I'm planning on coming back to but a recent post by a blogger I really enjoy reading made me start thinking again about the issue of ethical clothes sourcing again.

This is something I started thinking more seriously about back when we were still in the UK but I didn't get all too far before we moved abroad. And then, I'll admit, I put it straight to the back of my mind. But now it's one of the issues I'm wrestling with and it's symptomatic of many issues where I'm trying to figure out how to reconcile (still developing) principles with living in a country where I have to work out those principles in different ways to before. So this is just one issue of many that I am starting to think through and decide what is right, reasonable and realistic - and make my peace with the fact that the answers I come to here will necessarily be different to the answers I would come to if we still lived in the UK.

It would be really tempting to think that because I live in a different country, I automatically get a free pass on these kinds of issues but that's not a healthy or sustainable way to live long term. There are definitely areas where we've had to weigh up the pros and cons and have decided that the less-environmentally friendly option is the right one for us at the moment (disposable nappies comes immediately to mind) but it seems that the most important aspect is not the conclusion that is reached but to actually think about it and carefully consider the assumptions, motivations, and factors involved.

In terms of clothing, my most basic assumption is that how my clothes have been produced matters. I believe I have a responsibility to help steward the earth's resources well and also to 'love my neighbour' in thinking about the conditions of those who make the clothes I wear rather than just thinking about myself. This is not the sort of subject that has nice, simple answers but at the very least I have to work on the principle that, if there's an item of clothing I'd like to buy, its monetary price should not be the only consideration I have in making purchasing decisions.

Given that fairly basic consideration, I'm still thinking through (and will be for quite a while!) what other considerations there should be and how I should apply them while I live here. Just to emphasise, these are my personal thoughts and ideas. I fully expect other people to come to different conclusions but I would encourage anyone reading this to at least think about how they buy.

I tend to prioritise different buying routes: the best thing (for the environment at least) is not to buy at all. Second would be to buy second hand (either charity shops or ebay) with a close third being to buy from companies that ethically source their clothes, both in terms of production of raw materials and the actual making of the clothes. After that I'd put companies that ethically source their clothes in terms of either raw materials or the tailoring, followed by companies that make at least some effort ethically, and then everyone else.

In terms of not buying at all, it doesn't make much different whether you're in the UK or Turkey! I'll admit, this one came fairly easily to me before having children and now I have two, it is my default setting. The thought of trying to find clothes for myself with two children in tow fills me with dread and while my lovely husband is more than willing to look after them if I need to go shopping, (a) I don't want to unnecessarily take advantage of that and (b) if I'm going to have time to myself without children, there's things I'd rather do than go shopping for clothes.

However, charity shops as a concept don't really seem to exist here and neither does buying second hand clothes on ebay. I've also struggled to find companies that make a point of selling ethically produced clothes. In addition, I have an additional constraint of needing to be careful to make sure I dress modestly - right now it's not too much of an issue but if we lived in another city, I would probably need to be even more careful.

I'd be the first to admit that I haven't found any really good solutions yet, I'm just muddling along using a variety of different routes. Some are more ethical and environmentally friendly, others less so. I'm trying to get as much life out of everything I currently own as I can (this is a big plus of living here - there are lots of small tailors locally who can repair or adjust clothes, local cobblers to resole shoes, little workshops that will fix handbags and rucksacks). I have been known to get ebay orders sent to family in the UK ahead of them visiting here (yay for cheap bundles of barely used baby clothes!). I'm planning on buying some things when I'm next back in the UK. I'm also trying to buy from Turkish brands where the clothes are produced in Turkey. That's not a solution for the provenance of the material but there are at least laws concerning labour here. Sometimes I just buy from one of the cheaper chains here. Occasionally I've ordered clothes for the J and S from UK supermarkets and got them delivered to family who are going to be visiting us, for them to bring out. It's very much a work in progress, but it's something I'm going to keep thinking about.

How about you? How do you decide what and how to buy? Is this something you've given much thought to before?

A thought for a new year

It's been quiet on the blogging front recently. Truthfully, it feels like we've spent most of December hibernating with at least one of us, and usually more than one, ill in some form. I'd like to say that we are recovering, and we are, but after I caught a cold last week, the tiredness and lack of energy that often comes as an after effect of flu has returned with a vengeance.

I was very tempted this morning to write a whole list of resolutions for this new year because of course when you're trying to conserve energy the logical thing to do is to start planning all the things you can start when you've got a bit more energy. But then I turned to the devotional book I've been reading (the same one I was reading a few weeks back, which, in the spirit of honesty, I'll admit that I have not progressed very far through since mentioning it before). And it turned out that these words were exactly what I needed this morning:

"In my pursuit of perfection, I become worn and weary. Perfectionism is pride-based performance, a determination to live up to my self-appointed standard. The truth my soul needs to hear is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Perfection is impossible. A chasm separates me from righteousness. It is a height I can never reach, an expanse I can never cross.

By accepting this first truth, I can believe in a second truth: I am justified freely by His grace through redemption in J... Grace means "undeserved favor." Salvation is a gift.... His grace is sufficient... Any failure that I fear is covered by his sacrifice. In J the performance pendulum stops."

At this point, I have to confess I started trying to list some of the ways in which I am tempted to chase after perfectionism. And then I realised how ridiculous some of them are, especially since I am also investing a significant amount of time in learning a foreign language. So I'm not going to list them publicly but imagine the Proverbs 31 wife updated to the 21st century and that would give you a pretty good idea!

So here's to a year of not trying to be perfect. Or at least trying to not try to be perfect. Happy New Year!