Last Wednesday night in my writing class, we started discussing what kind of writing existed that captured the MK (missionary kid) experience. I said how I had been unable to find very many first person accounts about the MK experience, and that the ones I did find were mostly written by my parents' generation. Someone in the class mentioned The Poisonwood Bible as an example of something that captured the MK experience.
"Didn't Barbara Kingsolver grow up in Africa?" someone asked.
I jumped in with the clarification that her parents were NOT missionaries but government workers, and that the book portrayed such an extreme religious figure that I didn't feel it really represented the majority of mission work.
One of the students said to me, "as someone without any religious experience, I would be curious why you see an important distinction between someone who had missionary parents and someone who had parents working overseas for the government. I just don't see what's so different about those two experiences."
Something inside of me rose up like an angry bear when she said it. I felt something in me want to scream, THERE'S A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE! And that world is religion.
But I've been thinking more about the question, and I'm not sure that the differences are so distinct. There's a title that lumps MKs, military brats, and kids who lived internationally for government and business reasons and that's TCK - Third Culture Kids. What we share is the experience of being raised in a culture that is not the native culture of our parents. So we don't belong to our parents' culture and we don't belong to the culture of the country where we live. It's a lot like second generation immigrants, except that the expectation is that once we leave the house, we'll return to our parent's culture. (Though many just continue traveling or living overseas because that's more natural.)
But what is it in me that felt so defensive about the missionary experience? Obviously the faith factor is unique among MKs, but why the strong emotional reaction? Maybe Barbara Kingsolver did experience much of what I experienced, but for some reason I have my doubts. And I don't think The Poisonwood Bible captures something critical about mission work. I don't think it captures how ordinary, organized, and corporate it is. It does a good job of exploring the way extreme belief meets cross-cultural impasses. It's a great book to explore the rape and pillaging of Africa. But it's not a book that captures my experience. I want to keep thinking about why that is, because I might get closer to figuring out what my experience was.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
yeah, but Kirsten, what did you say? I want to know what you said when you felt like an angry bear.
so, tell me.
I didn't say anything, or actually, I said "that's interesting for me to think about."
I really did appreciate the comment. I felt like it was interesting to realize that someone had that perception.
But while my rational mind was interacting politely in writing class and expressing appreciation for feedback, my insides were rising up like an angry bear and beating my heart against my ribcage. It took me by surprise and left me unable to listen well for the rest of the class.
I was surprised that you identified "ordinary, organized and corporate" as adjectives to specify what you think has not been captured yet about MK experience. I know you are making that point specifically in response to Kingsolver's point of view. But it is still interesting, because from what I know of Poisonwood Bible (never read it), it does seem to be addressing the "world of difference" that is religion. It seems like part of you is saying to the student in your class: "There's a world of difference!" But in a way, another part of you is saying to Kingsolver's audience, "It is not so different as you think." It is an interesting tension you are laying out. Interesting distinctions.
I don't know if this will be related to your experience at all, but I struggle with Poisonwood Bible. It's a great book that probably needed to be written (I don't feel very sympathetic towards evangelists myself) and yet as a 'PK' with many missionaries in the fam I was defensive while reading it. I don't want it to be that easy for people to dismiss my family as bad when their intentions were/are so good. Even worse, how many times did I think I was doing the right thing and it turned out to be the very, very wrong thing? Maybe the 'world of difference' is the moral component?
I agree with that feeling of defensiveness. It's true that so many of the missionary intentions are good, and even many of the results. And it's not like the Peace Corps or the other non-profit organizations have a perfect record just because they don't go in with religious intentions. It's complicated.
That's one of the reasons I really loved that book that I found, Through Isaac's Eyes, that I mentioned a couple posts back. I feel like he does such a nice job of capturing the love and good intentions alongside that negative personal experiences.
Post a Comment