An Immigrant's Tale

I was raised by an immigrant, my dad was a business man.

He played into the American Dream. My mom: her offspring.

She made this her new home. My dad, well, this was home.

My dad's grandaddy had a choice: Eastern Europe post WWI.

Have to starve to death with no voice or leave town, get up and run.

He left and didn't look back, a typical hard working blue collar immigrant.

And when he came, no one knew how to pronounce his last name.

He was Majher, now they call me Mayher.

But he knew how to have fun, to go out dancing all night, he just didn't know how to fight for his right to his own ethnic identity. But then again, once in the American city, it was out of mind, out of sight.

My mom's dad had a choice too. Take a risk to find the American Dream, what seemed the perfect scheme, or remain in his country, predictable but known; please his dad but lose his chance to be free, on his own.

He came here, but his heart never left. He's more than old-fashioned, he's foreign.

His ways are not our ways, but no doubt he worked hard all his life. Through all his hardship and strife, he's the toughest man I know.

His darkest side is this country's darkest side: Racism. But I tried to make a schism in his legacy with this new recipe: American tolerance.

Now hear me out:

Has anyone ever painted a positive picture of Hitler?

Well guess what? They're both Austrian, him and my grandfather, and it turns out he had an economic plan.

A quick fix to go from dirt poor to filthy rich, and it worked for a moment, at the cost of many lives, yet it still left more in debt.

But isn't abortion another holocaust most Americans refuse to admit, perpetuated by our new found tolerance?

It doesn't make it right, but we need to realize our own murder before we start throwing rocks at the Führer.

Now, who am I? Who am I now?

What do you get when you take two immigrant families seeking for the American myth and put them together?

I don't quite know the answer except to say... it's me.

Now it did rid me of those dirty sins, but far from cleansing it simply switched the sting.

Tolerance became the new excuse for the murder of a generation.

And I sat back and watched, I didn't do anything, that's what I said. I said, I didn't do anything. And that's the truth, I didn't do anything. And if there was anything to do, it was anything, but I did nothing, leaving someone in a suit and a ring to be the king, do the thing, take the dream to a new extreme: liberate a people.

No more need for God, simply watch the box, believe the lies, and shut my eyes to the silent cries of unborn babies, no longer alive.

Yes, I was raised by an immigrant, but also by this culture.

I too, was no longer alive. Deadened with society with no piety, no purpose, just propriety.

Then it happened, while I wasn't even looking. The God found me.

I first believed in Him when I was about 21. And He didn't just save me, he also said 'Go'.

I felt called to a nation, then the nations, and now it's become an immigrant nation, whether Sasian or Haitian, European or Korean.

I learned how to say: 你好嗎?你從哪裏來的?

I was born again, raised by a Father who was there every moment and every step.

Sent to testify to someone greater, to be the servant of my savior.

And it's just the beginning because with you all I found a new beginning.

Now you're part of my story, a new quarry to quarry, singing a song that's brand new:

Yes, I was raised by an immigrant, and now also by you.

I love you all, Thank you.

Cultural Slavery


           As a cultural anthropologist, I feel entitled to speak about culture, and as a Christian, I have a very different spin on culture than most anthropologists.  Culture in itself is a beautiful identity of our species that is transferred by shared, learned behavior.  It embodies our ideology and beliefs through ritual and everyday practices, which are in turn defined through symbolic language scattered throughout each society.  The diversity offered and available to each people group makes our species the most fascinating on earth, especially recognizing that we interact with our own kind the most, and remain completely enthralled in ourselves.  People have manipulated culture, which is not intrinsically bad, in order to exploit others by painting a false world over their eyes.  In this sense, culture is the gatekeeper that confines us into a specific template that must be followed.  There is a right way to live, which is based on cultural rules, and living contrary to this receives some type of punishment.  The definition of these rules can be manipulated in order to grant the elites of society more power, while keeping the majority powerless.  I call this cultural slavery, and it is more common than people realize, although it is nearly invisible.  This culture is created by ideology, which is created by those with power (today, a large amount of this is controlled by the media/government).  These powerful elites keep the majority under control in order to increase their security.  It only makes sense if people don’t matter: only if some people are deemed worthless in order for others to gain more.  This is not natural selection by any means.  These people are not merely trying to survive, they are trying to exploit as much as possible, and gain as much power as they possible can from it.
How can this cultural slavery be stopped?  

Rising above cultures and stepping out of the proverbial prison doors and going against the grain squashes it. 

Following a new ideology that is based upon loving people, all people, and all cultures, and all places. 

It is likened to living like a child, because there is a culture in the heavens that we can be children of.

We can adopt these shared, learned behaviors of perfect love from the Father (God) who created this culture. 

His culture is being played out in the heavens right now, and it can be us who learn from Him and bring that culture to our world.

Unfortunately, our species is currently unable to complete this mission, because not only are we moral and social beings, we are also sinful.

We need the transforming power of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, to come and transform and teach us.

We need to be born again, not physically, but spiritually, so we can learn a heavenly culture and be released from our current cultural slavery.

Jesus did this by dying on the cross as a sacrifice to forgive and take away our sinfulness.

This was the only way possible because the wages of sin is death, and the savior paid that price.

For how can a sinful person enter into the sinless presence of a perfect creator?  No one can.

Those who are covered with the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice also receive the Spirit of Jesus as an inheritance and helper in living this new life full of justice, hope, and mercy: a life where perfect love is the end goal.

These people, with the help of the Spirit of God, transform cultures of slavery into a heavenly culture of love. 

This is the answer, and this is the message that the world needs to hear.