I can say with complete honesty that I am not mean.

In fact, I haven’t a mean bone in my body. So, why then, do I sometimes do mean things? Why do I sometimes surround myself with negative thoughts about something or someone? Is it because I am human and I have human emotions? Do I hate? No. Can I be catty and petty? Yes. Is the excuse that I am human and will behave as humans do, a cop out?

On this Ash Wednesday as I enter the Lenten season, I am reflecting quite a bit on my behavior and why I do the things I do. In chapel this morning, as I listened to the sermon, I realized that instead of giving up chocolate for Lent, I need to give up anger. I need to give up resentment. I need to give up negativity. I need to give up catty thoughts. I need to give meaning to what is positive and not give meaning to what is negative. This is not only necessary in my personal life, but in my thoughts about our world as well.

As we enter this season of Lent, I reaffirm that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Reflecting on my thoughts during chapel today, I want to share about an incident this summer when I was in Mumbai. If you read my piece, Finding God in the Slums of Mumbai, you know what a difficult trip I had. By the end of my month in India, I was fried. My patience was thin. I was tired of witnessing such destruction and immense poverty in the slums, while also witnessing a caste system that allows some to live lives of luxury and opulence, while desperately oppressing the most needy in India.

My daughter Katy and I were in an auto rickshaw on a Sunday sitting in traffic. As I looked out on India, I noted a very well-fed, plump woman making her way through the crowded streets begging for money. Her clothes were clean, her sari pleated just right, nice sandals on her feet, her diamond nose ring screamed rupees, and her English implied a career of begging from Westerners. She saw our lighter skin sitting inside the rickshaw and made a beeline toward our car. She stood there and asked for money, telling us how hungry she was and how she needed to buy milk for her daughter, as she touched my knees and reached for my purse.

After witnessing Chandbee dying in the slums, I had a bad attitude. In fact, I still do. I am impatient with greed. I am impatient with selfishness. I am impatient with ambivalence. I didn’t want to give money to someone who was healthy, walking, talking and otherwise in what seemed to be a sound place in her life. I was angry that this woman targeted Katy and me because she hoped she could play on our heartstrings by insisting how her daughter might die if we didn’t help her.

At first I just said, “No,” and looked away.

As she insisted, I grew more impatient. Finally, I turned and said very forcefully (spelled phonetically), “Ne! Chello!” Which means, “No! Go away!”

She snickered and in perfect English said, “Ah, you know Hindi.”

I looked her squarely in the eye and said, “No, not really. I know just enough to tell people like you to go away.”

She was somewhat stunned by what I said, smiled, and slinked away. I was stunned by what I said and how I said it. My daughter looked at me as if to say, I can’t believe you just said that.

I know what provoked my interaction to this woman. I understand that it wasn’t born out of anything to do with her, but from a social system that is born out of tradition, ritual and desperation. My love-hate relationship with India proves I am human. That witnessing such oppression provokes exactly what it should in me—anger, frustration, and a fire to do something about it—to not just stand idly by and do nothing.

Yet, where is the real lesson here? Is it in Chandbee? In the beggar? In me? In India? In the wider social system that our world operates “normally” on?

I believe it is all those and more. I believe that my lesson from my experience with Chandbee, or with the beggar, or with our sometimes selfish and ambivalent world, as well as from my personal demons—all these things are the lessons I must and should carry with me every day, because it is in those lessons where I stand, where I am, where I become, and where I remain Karen Leslie Hernandez.

The trick is to not have those lessons be negative, but positive. To not have those lessons and experiences morph into something they don’t need to be, or what I don’t want them to be. The trick is to not let those lessons plague me, or bring me down; to not let those lessons rule my behavior or make me into something I know I am not. The trick is to not let those lessons lend to me being catty, rude, or petty about small things that in the big picture, really don’t matter.

Easier said than done? Maybe. Worth the effort? Definitely. Will I be a better person in the end? Could be. Will it fulfill my Lenten struggle? Yes. Is the effort for me, alone? No. Is that a good thing? Yes.

I can say with complete honesty that I am not mean.

In fact, I haven’t a mean bone in my body. So, why then, do I sometimes do mean things? Why do I sometimes surround myself with negative thoughts about something or someone? Is it because I am human? Even if it is, I can strive past that. I want to strive past that. I want to give meaning to what is positive and not give meaning to what is negative. I am not sure if this will be easy, but I am up to the challenge. Won’t you join me?