Culture isn't given enough credit

My family moved to Thailand four years after I was born in Texas. I lived there until I was 18, often in villages surrounded by rice paddies and banana trees. Some may call that exotic. It was just my backyard. 

I certainly didn't look like I belonged. Blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin in a sea of black hair, dark eyes, brown skin. Yet once I ate their food and spoke their language, the differences dimmed. I would always be a 'foreigner' but eventually I became a friend, a part of the community. It warmed my heart when a friend of mine said, "You are Thai on the inside." I had been there 14 years after all. It was my home. 

People in the States weren't so generous. They saw my blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and thought they knew me. I would tell them about Thailand, and it would be a novelty for awhile, but soon it only bred frustration on their part because I didn't fit their mold. When I would insist I was Thai (culturally) it was met almost with hostility. "No you're not. Look at yourself."

I don't understand the fixation on lineage, genetics. Genes may be a blueprint for a house, but it's just a blueprint. Once it's built and lived in, a house takes on a personality distinct from the buildings cast from the same mold.

Anyway... my bellyaching on the subject boiled over into this script. Once the film was made, I was encouraged to find it resonated with others who felt boxed by society and stifled in expressing their full experience. I couldn't ask for more than that :)

Humans see only what is visible to the eyes,
but God sees into the heart.
_
1 samuel 16:7