My junior year of college I took a tutorial concerning literary non-ficton (aka well-written essays and biographies). One of the pieces I read was an excerpt from a book called The Things They Carried, concerning soldiers in VietNam and how what they carried (letters from home, guns, food rations, each other) affected their experience.
I couldn't help but think of that essay as I unpacked and reorganized my bags (I'm staying with an extremely hospitable family while I'm settling in). What have I carried with me to France? Upon unpacking the bags I brought here in November, along with the ones that traveled with me, I discovered that I have an unreasonable number of shoes (never enough) and even more books (Allelu!) and yet even more CDs. I have more skirts than pants, four jackets but only one sweater, three swimsuits--the youngest of which is five years old. I carried two French presses (for coffee making--one fullsize, one travelsize), 8 types of perfume (most travel sized), two passports and four currencies.
All of these things reveal bits of who I am, as does what I DIDN'T carry with me. My bags were remarkably light on comfort food and tech gadgets.
The most centering things are what I carry with me wherever I go. I can play a certain sonatina on any piano in any country of the world. I can quote the first stanza of Paul Revere's Ride, list the first and (usually) middle name of my 6 grandparents, 17 aunts & uncles, 25 first cousins and various and sundry cousins-in-law and their children.
My Bible carries the same words in France that it does in America, and the promises and stories remain as overwhelmingly reassuring as ever. And that got me thinking...if what I carry portrays insight into who I am, what does God carry with Him? What can we know about God by what He carries? Physically, Jesus carried many things: loaves and fishes, carpentry tools, children, bread and wine, the cross. Also, what does God carry in his heart? I'm still pondering that one... I have some great travel stories, but they'll have to come later.
9 years ago
1 comment:
yay! you are there! can't wait to hear the traveling stories. i remember the excerpt you speak of (we probably have the same anthology)...and have read it several times since because it really makes you think. thanks for resurfacing the concept to think about in a fresh new way...
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