Personal Space: When Cultural Norms Don’t Play Nice with the Commandments

In a "What Would Jesus Do" moment, FB Smit opens the doors to her moral jail when others’ cultural norms don’t fit hers.

I come from a family of seven and we lived in tight quarters for a time. Communal living is not easy. We like space: houses that separate us from our neighbors, big yards, and fences of steel, wood, or trees for privacy. We don’t like a view of our neighbors or the street where they pass but instead, we like nature, unobstructed by humans and their stuff. We like personal space.

This fact seems ever so clear to me when we take a family trip to Disney World. At Disney, a worldwide family destination, one finds a melting pot of people from every culture. The labyrinth, snaking, creeping, crawling line toward the ride start is crowded, and unglamorous, but where one spends a good bit of time at Disney.

When it’s hot in Orlando, Florida, this line moves slower than usual and people inch up to get closer to where the entertainment starts, as though doing so will speed up the line. In this crowded space, it’s up for interpretation as to how much space you should leave between yourself and the person in front of you.

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Courtesies and norms of other places hop on planes and cross borders. Visitors may know nothing of the personal bubble rule, and that Americans like our personal space, especially to separate us from people who don’t use deodorant because it’s not their cultural norm. Saying excuse me is not a thing because excuse me is not a courtesy phrase in some places of the world. Space belongs to whoever takes it up first.

This happens closer to home in places like the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market, the international grocery store, where each aisle-turn evokes sights and smells of another world. Some speak languages I can’t place, and personal space—what’s that? The popping of personal bubbles is loud.

Makes me wonder: who came up with the personal space law and why do people who break my law go immediately to my mental jail?

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Jesus accused the Pharisees of putting people in moral jail. The Pharisees and scribes question Jesus, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” Jesus responds by calling the Pharisees out on their hypocrisy, saying, “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” (Mark 7:5, 8)

How do we know we are not guilty of clinging to human tradition and not to God’s commandment?

When Jesus is asked to identify the greatest commandment, He replies:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39

He goes on to say that the whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:40)

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What Christ references as the greatest commandments provides a reference point and a good litmus test. Do our cultural norms or rules jive with the greatest commandments to love God above all else and our neighbor as ourselves? If I apply this standard to my personal space law, then the bubbles burst before any stranger steps a toe too close.

We Christians follow God’s laws, or at least attempt to, and God's laws are there, not for personal comfort (too bad), but for the love of God and community (love your neighbor).

I don’t plan to take down the line of bushes between my neighbor’s house and mine (which took years to grow tall enough so I can see nothing of what’s going on with my neighbor) but the next time I go to Buford Highway Farmer’s Market and someone encroaches on my bubble, no more handcuffs, jail bars, and throwing away the key. Instead, I will offer them a universal courtesy of a smile and give them some personal space.

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