Hey guys well its Monday and time for another blog.

This weekend I had the honor to attend an aiga of one of the local Samoan churches, here in Virginia. In traditional Samoan, the word "aiga" (ai-ing-a) literally means family. However, these days, aiga is also used to describe the event when a church family comes together to celebrate the Samoan culture. In most cases aigas includes lots of traditional food, dances, and music; but most of all they generally include a special guest speaker. In the case for this weekend, his excellency Ali'ioaiga Feturi Elisaia the Ambassador to the United States, Canada, and the United Nations representing the independent state of Samoa graced us with his thoughts on Samoan culture. While I do enjoy going to aigas, many Samoans will tell you that often these speeches are boringly similar. So it was to my surprise when the Ambassador's speech was unlike any I had heard before. He described the Samoan culture as an evolving and adaptive system that lives not in any one authority but in the many different people that make up the Samoan community. He stressed the importance of a core set of values that are not meant to hinder the development of the people but to maintain a road to salvation. Both the Ambassador and the Pastor warned that while culture is a means of maintaining community, it is not impervious to sin. So like that of many peoples, Samoan culture is not perfect.

Question:

If culture is vulnerable to corruption, and there is not any one authority on pure culture. How does one maintain a true sense of "Fa'a Samoan" or any other traditional way of life?