Last February my wife, Anne, and I moved from a loft apartment near downtown Aurora to a garden apartment on the east side of Aurora, near Naperville. Because we were moving to an apartment that is smaller and has less storage space than the previous one, we got rid of a lot of our stuff. Papers, photos, books, clothing, toys, even some furniture were sold, given away, recycled, or trashed. When we had moved everything in, I suggested to Anne, "Let's pretend that we are getting ready to move to another country. What things would we actually bring with us? What is important enough to us that we would store it in Aurora? What would we sell, give away, recycle, or trash from the stuff that we still have?" We didn't actually do this exercise, but the thought of it did help to prepare us for where we are now:
It came up suddenly last Friday when Anne received an email telling her
that she had been accepted to a program in the Clinton Health Access
Initiative, and had been given an appointment in a hospital in Rwanda
mentoring midwives. She had applied many months ago and had thought
that she was not going to hear anything back. Now it looks like she is
expected to arrive in time for orientation beginning on August 1st. We have lots of stuff to go through and divest ourselves of!
We have begun to count down the days and list all of the things that
we need to do to prepare. The program will also pay to fly me out and
the salary and per Diem are sufficient for both of us. I will likely find work
teaching English, as Rwanda is moving towards all its citizens learning
English. in the meantime, I will probably have to drop out of the play I was just cast in (Egeon in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors) which is a downer for me, since I haven't been on stage since last summer
and working with Midsummer Theater Troupe was one of the most enjoyable
gigs I have had in a long time. But I have hopes of doing some
sort of acting in Rwanda. Mostly, I am excited (and nervous) about experiencing a whole
new cultural reality.
A final thought for this evening: Monday I went to work after getting too little sleep. I found that I was irritable and prone to being critical of anyone or anything that inconvenienced me. "Whoa!" I thought, "If a little sleep deprivation can put me out of sorts this much, how do I expect to deal with culture shock and all that I will face in Rwanda?" So now I am working on a more spiritual way of being: What ever another person does, I need to refrain from judging them or their actions. Instead of responding out of my criticism of their actions or of them, I need practice following the principles that I have been striving to learn: patience, empathy, loving-kindness, and a willingness to learn from whatever life throws at me.
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Good catch! Yes, I remind myself that everyone does what they believe is the right thing for them to do at any given moment. If we take the attention that our instincts would have us focus upon -say, a negative reaction- and divert it to understanding what in life may have inspired them to believe that how they acted was the right thing to do, we gain empathy. Accept them as having a valid perspective and treat them as a beloved family member who has been offended. As we both know -with you being a good actor- portraying a character effectively involves understanding their perspective and motivations. With that in practice, we can understand them and interact with them with an intentionally good, accepting, understanding. Even if the only understanding is acceptance, that is the best basis for further understanding. ~(:
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