Traditions

As Easter draws near tomorrow and I learning more and more about Polish traditions. I am seeing how deep traditions run. I know in America we have many traditions but at some point we may not follow them or put much stock into them. I have found this isn't true with the traditions here. While tomorrow is Easter and EVERYTHING is shut down for Sunday and Monday because of it not everyone will go to church. They will celebrate and do all of things to replicate the symbolism of Christ's death but not attend church because other traditions get in the way of it. Not everyone is like this but I am seeing that traditions get in the way of a lot of things here. I never thought that traditions could run so deep, or maybe I've forgotten culture 101. How often do we stop to see why we are doing something or why we feel pressured to do it? It is harder to stop and think about it. Maybe we wouldn't really like or maybe we don't agree with it but it would cause us to change a lot about our lives. Do we have the faith to do that?

At first glance it is comforting to see that I am in a place that overall everyone believes in God. That's encouraging and it's nice to not need to discuss the existence of God when talking about other spiritual aspects. But as I continue to learn more about some of my friends and we continue to get together for different things, I am seeing how different we really are. We have a lot of similarities but then there are slight differences that are starting to come out and usually it has to do with traditions and not being willing to change them. I have had some amazing conversations with people and felt like there were some new information being passed on, but now I am starting to wonder if it really was passed on or if we discussed for the sake of discussing and because we are from different countries. Does that make sense? So this is the challenge I face now, continuing to love and speak in love, truth, and grace into their lives even when our Theology differs and traditions take over, no matter how many times we talk about it. ;)