How full is your suitcase?
I am packing to leave on Sunday for a little vacation. It is an interesting discipline. It is so easy to put so much stuff in the suitcase. It is so easy to keep packing things in there until the suitcase is full, and then to have to lug that through the airports and the like… woof.
It is made more complicated by the fact that my carry on is always full with my CPAP machine. So the issue becomes: Can I fit everything else I need in one suitcase, and not be above the size/weight limit? I quickly realize I am going to have to unpack some things on this trip I’m taking. Golf clubs? Nope. Can rent them if I really want to. Couple of sleeves of golf balls – now we’re talking. Swim trunks? Check. Winter coat – not where I’m going. Get rid of that puppy… Sunday best? – nope, be back by next Sunday. Breviary – you betcha! And so it goes. I’m doing an item by item ‘sort’ to see what I really need and what is a luxury for this trip I am on.
It strikes me that this season of Lent calls us to the same type of discipline – to go through the ‘suitcase’ that we carry around in our life to see what we have packed there. Those three disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving – when it comes right down to it, are all about making sure that we travel light, aren’t they. Prayer – to give us insight into what God would have us be about on the road. Fasting –to empty ourselves of our addiction to food and the like. Almsgiving – to unpack the propensity to keep putting more and more stuff into our suitcases – and to make sure that those who truly have need of our bounty have the opportunity to share in it.
It is also a time to see what kind of baggage we still carry with us. We can let the discipline of prayer help us to see the resentment we still carry around like a club at work because we were passed over for a promotion. We can let the discipline of fasting help us to see our dependence upon “things” to make us happy and complete. [Challenge to my college students – give up Facebook for these 40 days. Use that time instead to HAVE CONVERSATIONS with some of those people. And to pray. To grade school kids – give up playing your x-box – nintendo, wii – or at least match that time with time spent praying. Or serving. Or helping around the house… We can let the discipline of almsgiving remove the blinders that keep the plight of the poor from our minds on a regular basis. As often as we give up our favorite snack- donate the proceeds. Or even more – each time you find yourself angry or vengeful or cheating on a test, or not obeying your parents or… throw in a buck. Let the costly experience of confronting your demons of passing on inappropriate jokes – help you unpack the prejudice that sometimes afflicts your spirit.
Because when it is all said and done, there is only one trip we really have to pack for. And that is the one where we can’t take anything with us – except the good that we have done and the relationship with our Savior that we have nourished during our time on earth. Have a great time UNPACKING this Lent…