April 4 – Enough

Recently, I was telling some people about the cross-cultural experience I had when I was a student at Lancaster Theological Seminary. Every second-year student was expected to participate in a three-week trip to a different culture – a place that would challenge our assumptions and broaden our vision. Sometimes it’s India. Sometimes it’s Israel. Sometimes it’s Africa or Latin America. The year I went it was Cuba.

It has to be three weeks long, we were told, because that’s how much time it takes to become immersed in a place, to get over that “I’m just on vacation” feeling.

The first week I was in Cuba I embraced the uniqueness of it. I busied myself with taking photographs and making notes in my journal. I felt very much like a tourist. I was fine.

The second week got a little harder, it began to feel long. With no phone calls or internet service, I yearned to see my kids’ faces, hear my family’s voices. 

The third week a weird thing happened. It was like I had accepted this state of affairs. Reality had been suspended; I felt strangely like Cuba was where I had always been and where I would always be. 

It was an amazing experience. Three weeks really was enough to feel immersed in it, somehow changed by it.

So, I think Lent is kind of like that, too. It has to be long enough to lose the novelty, to get past the irritation, and to become something that is just a part of you. Even though it feels long. Even though it feels unendurable at times. It’s not too long and it’s not unendurable. It’s just enough.

Photo: An ice cream wagon in Ciego de Avila, Cuba.