Lent

 

As you know, I am a Roman Catholic and the Season of Lent is once upon me and other Catholic people. Each year, I try to do something for lent. Usually, I give up drinking wine, but this year, I decided there was something much more important for me to do. I had to give up grumbling and give up my resentment to my husband.

 

First, I will tell you about the grumbling. Actually, you already know all about the grumbling. I've been grumbling since I got to Sri Lanka. I grumbled about the cold, I grumbled about the rain, I grumbled about the electricity going off every night, I grumbled about wet sheets and clothes that wouldn't dry. I grumbled about cold houses and cold hospitals. For lent, I choose to see all the positive and wonderful things in my current life here. I am reminded of the song:

 

Happy days are here again,

The skies above are clear again,

Let the sun shine in,

Face it with a grin,

Open up your hearts and

Let the sun shine in.

 

 

Yes, there is much to be thankful for. I have the long desired opportunity to live and work in a foreign country, learn a second language, be more culturally competent as a social worker and person and have my good man here with me. Yes, there is much to see that is good.

 

 

However, my good man did not grumble. He was excited each and every day. He was bright and cheerful and happy. Each day he waved to me as I climbed on my scooter in the rain and wished me a good day at work. Therein, lay the problem.

 

 

He was on holiday. Who doesn't feel bright and optimistic and cheerful and relaxed while on vacation?

I had to work. I struggled with resentment about the inequity of this arrangement. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be working too, writing policy or advocating for human rights or sitting on a war crimes tribunal. I resented that he didn't have my stress.

 

 

I wanted to be the domestic. I didn't want the stress of having to go to work. It was stressful to figure out what my role was here, what needed to be done to build capacity, what I had the capacity to accomplish and to evaluate the community capacity for change. I had to communicate with a vocabulary that was so limited it could be written on the back of a hockey card. I resented his cheerfulness. I could be cheerful too, if I had his life of permanent vacation mode!

 

 

So, lent is about opportunity for changing attitudes. I chose to feel happy for him that he does not have the stress that I feel and more importantly it has shifted my own thinking. I wanted this stress. I wanted to do development work. I wanted to learn another language. I wanted to live and work within a different cultural context. I am getting what I wanted.

 

 

So, lent seems about sacrifice, but it is also a period of reflection and introspection. The paradox of lent is that the sacrifice brings the peace. I now enjoy Sri Lanka and my work and the language and the culture and my husband being so happy. I just wish he didn't grin so much.