Recently a friend and I were discussing the societal theories of High Context vs. Low Context. High Context meaning hard to get in, hard to get out. Low being easy to get in, easy to get out.
Here’s a bit more of a Wikipedia Definition:
Typically a high context culture will be relational, collectivist, intuitive, and contemplative. They place a high value on interpersonal relationships and group members are a very close knit community.
Sounds like the south, no?
Low context culture refers to a culture’s tendency not to cater towards in-groups – meaning a group having similar experiences and expectations, from which, in turn, inferences are drawn. In Low Context cultures, much more is explained through words, instead of the context.
A traditional southern family supper? High Context.
A Twitter conversation? Low Context.
Yet both are becoming more vital to our existence.
I’ve been to a lot of family dinners. By context, those dinners show up in my books, in my conversations, in my blogs. I probably couldn’t even tell you what part of me was formed by all of those Thanksgivings, Christmases and summer picnics.
On the other hand, I’ve posted over 17K Tweets! By context, those are merely communications of words that may or may not touch my life. Those that do, are specific and remembered.
Yet both contexts play a vital part in my life.
The idea for The Wedding Dress started on Twitter. A couple of lightly connected Twitter publishing friends called for a get together. Low Context.
But we quickly moved to High Context where the four of us met one weekend in June.
During that weekend, in the midst of conversation, the idea for The Wedding Dress hit me and I knew it was my next book.
Throughout the book, one protagonist exists in a High Context world — the traditions and rules of southern society.
While the other protagonist exists in a Low Context community — independent and self sufficient.
But as one stretched to free herself from social and racial barriers, the other discovers a personal history that roots her in her self and her community.
High Context. Low Context. We need both!
What are other places we connect on a casual level but move to a more intimate one?
Prayer? I love corporate prayer. It seems Low Context. Anyone can come. Anyone can go. Easy in, easy out.
But the more we pray together the more our hearts connect and by inference and context, the prayer meeting becomes a close knit community with expectations.
I miss my prayer buddies when they aren’t there. I relate to them on a different level than others in my spiritual circle.
A friend once told a church member who complained she couldn’t get close to the Haucks. (Little did we know!) Our friend said, “You want to know them? Show up at prayer meetings.”
How true. It’s not a litmus test, but it’s where we find commonality of mind and heart.
My husband and I both want Jesus as the main thing in our lives. We seek to build relationships with others who feel the same way. It encourages us to run the race!
As a writer, I seek to build community with other writers. The Belles and our friends on the porch, y’all, are part of my inspiration. My moment at the water cooler.
Community is where ideas are birthed. Solitude is where they are nurtured.
What are other places where we find community? Reading? So many times a reader will tell me how one aspect of the book touched them — a name of a character or a theme, maybe the issues the protagonist faced — therefore they connect with me as the author. I connect with them as a reader.
Community is all around us. We have to have both High Context and Low Context to survive, IMHO.
High Context to create a sustaining community. Low Context to hold an open hand for new experiences and new friends, for the Lord to move people and things in and out of our lives.
What about you? What aspects of community do you hold most dear? What aspects do you hold with an open hand?
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Rachel Hauck is a low context kind of person who writes from her turret in central Florida. Her latest release, The Wedding Dress, was described by Romantic Times as “incredible.”
www.rachelhauck.com