Jo Bower's Blog

Still, after eight years, when I’m in public someone will turn to me and say,
“You’re not from around here, are ya’?”
I laugh, open my mouth and answer
In my Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Texas, and faint, Mid-Louisiana drawl
“Oh yeah? How can you tell? ”

A fellow blogger planted a seed to look at this “different accent” more seriously.
What if people could tell who I belong to by watching and listening to me?
Would they hear the same unbecoming vocabulary so commonly spouted
With no regard for the emotional damage those words do to us all?
Would they see me demand my right to be served first?
Or be rude to those serving?

Would they hear encouraging words or see a smile?
Would they see peace when each day’s constant little crisis times
Swirl around us all and people are getting upset?
Do I consider long lines a personal affront
Or a time to shower grace
Upon the unsuspecting people sharing my space?

What is going on here? Who is this person? What planet is she from?
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
No, I guess not.
God has so changed me I don’t always respond like everyone else.
The peace of God reflected in my manner
Has often been the thing people have commented upon.

But it doesn’t come from my culture
Or those many places that have muddled my accent.
It is the by-product of living in the relationship with God.
And, culturally speaking,
I don’t live in the place
Where I have to be first or the most important person in my world.

So when people want to know where the way I live
That is so much more calm, less stormy and dramatic than their lives,
I have an answer.
It’s not from around here:
Or any of my varied cultural exposures.
It’s from God.

Titus 3:3-9
Thanks to: nightshade130.wordpress.com