The Very Rev. David Giuliano

Friday, April 23, 2008

This Moderator's Blog originally appeared on WonderCafe*.

Naomi is here with me in Toronto tonight. Tomorrow she flies back to Thunder Bay and eventually home to Marathon for the summer. I picked her up this afternoon at the University of Waterloo. We loaded her boxes, suitcases, stereo, and laundry into the van. She and her friends said their tearful goodbyes.

Tonight she is sorting. Three piles: to drop off for donations at the Salvation Army Thrift Store; to put in the closet here at the condo until September; to pack what she will need over the next four months in Marathon.

Some things are easy. Even in Marathon she won’t need her winter coat, boots, scarf, and mitts for the summer. Some things are more difficult. She doesn’t have a job yet so is wondering what clothes to bring. Will she run a photocopier, a weed whacker, or a chambermaid’s cart at the “0-100” Hotel again? Some seem easy to me and difficult to her: “How many pairs of high heel shoes can you wear during a summer in Northwestern Ontario?” I ask this question only in my head!

I fold laundry into suitcases and remember a scene recounted to me by a friend. He had been at the airport. He told me about an elderly woman who was at the check-in counter getting a boarding pass. She had three quite large suitcases with her. The agent weighed them and explained that because the flight was full, two of the bags would follow on a flight later that night.

My friend said the woman physically threw her body onto her suitcases and shouted at the attendant, “They are all coming with me!” The agent explained again that the airplane was full and no additional baggage could be loaded. The agent assured the passenger that all her bags would arrive at their destination before the end of the day. But the would-be traveller insisted on waiting six hours to be on the same flight with her bags. She was adamant, “I’m not going anywhere without my baggage!”

Maybe she’s had some bad experiences with lost bags. Who knows? My friend reflected that sometimes we’re like that on our journey toward God. We want to move more deeply into the heart of God. We want to pray. We want to open our lives more profoundly to the world around us. But we have baggage with which we are not willing or able to part.

All kinds of extra baggage keep us from getting to the destination of our desire. Our inability to forgive. Old concerns about what others might think. Ideas and images about God—as angry judge or all-powerful magician or simply “out there.” Feelings of unworthiness. Refusing to risk the pilgrimage because we want to be in control of it. Our old friend fear. All crammed into trunks and steamers, rolling suitcases and carry-on luggage that we drag around with us wherever we go. Of course, in the life of faith the destination is not as important as the journey.

I watch Naomi sort out what to give away, what to leave behind for a while, and what needs to come with her. It feels like an invitation to ask the same questions of myself. An invitation to ask, what have I packed for the journey that I really don’t need to bring along? Is there something I need to leave behind for a while or to give away entirely? How can I be curious and loving toward myself about it? How can I welcome the ever-present grace when there is so little emptiness in my life?

It is a good question to ask about our common journey too. What do our church communities need to leave behind so as not to be stuck in the departure lounge?