Doing the Expected

I'm now in the middle of reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was another book I wanted to get done with before the end of summer, and now I regret not starting sooner because it's a 600 page book. I'm almost 200 pages through, and Steinbeck has written some beautiful things.

One thing I came across today is the idea of acting how one is expected to act. The story is set around 1900, and at this point in the book is in the Salinas Valley in California. At this particular point in the story, an educated Chinese American reveals to one of the main characters that he is, in fact, educated and can speak formal English. To all others, however, he speaks broken English and succumbs to common Chinese immigrant stereotypes. The main character (Sam Hamilton), a deep thinking, hard-working, kind Irish immigrant, asks him why. Lee, the Chinese character, tells that it's what people expect from him. Life is easier for him if he does what others expect him to do instead of breaking out of that.

Hamilton sees this in himself as well, commenting that he tells a lot of jokes to visitors to his farm because people come to his farm expecting that. "I try to be funny for them even when the sadness is on me," comments Hamilton.

This is a truth I see a lot of in high school students. Some continue to fail classes because their peers expect them to put forth little effort. Others are constantly making one-liners because they are expected to provide entertainment. Looking back, I see a lot of that behavior in my self as well in high school. And I'm sure it's common in the adult world as well. Once people expect something from you, it's easier to maintain that expectation rather than rock the boat and change.

There are a million things to be said about this topic, but when I first read this section this morning, I wondered about what is expected of me when people come and see me, especially where I work. I'm not sure I've come up with an answer, but what has bothered me is what didn't come as an answer. I'm not sure that what people expect of me when they come to see me is a God-centered approach to all areas of my conversations. I'm just not sure if people immediately think, "That is a guy who is really connected with God in everything he does and says."

I had that reputation once, at least to a certain extent. While working a summer camp in Pennsylvania when I was 21, a few weeks into the job a friend of mine approached me and asked if we could talk. He had a question concerning religion in his relationship with a girl, and he prefaced the conversation with, "I know you're a religious guy. . ."

I don't really have people start conversations with me like that much anymore. Perhaps that was a different environment where I was closer to a lot of the people I worked with. The staff was younger, and we worked hard all day together, played hard at night together, and spent our days off together.

Whatever the reason, the same way people come to Hamilton in East of Eden for both help and laughter, I pray that soon people will come to me with an expectation of being around someone God-centered in all he does.