Comfort Items

Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.  These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.  Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.  Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.  And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."  They went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.  (Mark 6:7-13)

                When the pilot makes the passengers turn off their I-Pads for landing it’s pretty much look out the window or read the in-flight magazine.  I was in the aisle yesterday, so I was reading some travel tips in the magazine.  Here’s one that made me think:   “don’t wear big jewelry when you fly because it will set off the metal detector and somebody might steal it.”  Okay, that may be true, but the more compelling reason for me to resist the temptation to wear big jewelry when I fly is that I don’t need it.  Why would I haul around something I don’t need when I’m trying to get somewhere?

                My aversion to carrying unnecessary things, like so many of my ingrained habits, is probably something I acquired in the military.  When you carry your world on your back you become pretty discerning about even the small things you put in your rucksack because the weight adds up.  Of course, about some things you have no choice.  You have to take the gear you need to accomplish your mission.   If they send you out there to blow up a bridge, you are probably going to need some explosives.  And that stuff is usually pretty heavy.  All the other stuff, what we called Comfort Items (like food and sleeping bags), that was pretty much up to you.  I generally found that the more trained and disciplined a soldier was, the fewer Comfort Items he put in his rucksack.  The inverse was also true.  The softer the man—the heavier his rucksack was likely to be—and the more quickly his ability to accomplish the mission would degrade, as the weight of his bag full of Comfort Items ground him down.  In contrast, the disciplined soldier froze at night, but he travelled light.  When it came time to perform his mission, his energy wasn’t sapped by having hauled fifty pounds of big jewelry around on his back for a week. 

                In Mark 6, we see that Jesus gave the Twelve a pretty short packing list for their journey:  a staff and sandals.  The rest of the stuff, like bread and money?  Comfort Items—unnecessary to the Twelve’s mission to preach repentance and heal the sick.  I assume, as apparently the Twelve did, that if they needed something on their journey the Lord would provide it.  They didn’t need to carry their world around with them and they knew it, because their trust in Christ, and their self-discipline, had continually increased as they matured in Him.

As did the Disciples, it seems to me that as we mature as men we should be becoming more disciplined, with less need for Comfort Items in our rucksacks and more energy to accomplish the mission He has set out for us.  This should also be a lesson for the younger men who watch us to determine those things necessary and not in their rucksacks.  But is it so?  Are we maturing in Him as we age in years and learning to travel light?  Or, are we grinding down under the weight of the big jewelry that we should have long ago discarded, trudging on with a huge rucksack of Comfort Items that bring us nothing but discomfort and keep us from accomplishing our mission? 

Climbing Up Or Sliding Back

    In the Army I did some training along the Appalachian Trail—not ON the Trail, because soldiers do not travel on trails, that is where the enemy puts booby traps and ambushes.   So, for about a week, I humped a fifty pound rucksack, water and rifle up and down the steep mountains that flanked the Trail.  Despite my youth and fitness,  this training drained me to the bottom of what I had.   To overcome the pain and fatigue and drive on up the steep mountainsides, I tried focusing on only the crest as I pulled myself up, silently chanting—I’m almost there, just keep going, I’m almost there.  Thus, I drove forward, thinking only of the relief I would feel when I got to the top and reached a plateau where I would not have to climb any further.    Unfortunately, when I would finally drag myself to what I thought was the top, I would find I had been deceived—there was no plateau, only another crest to be scaled that I could not have seen from below.  It was as if each crest simply revealed a new one to be scaled, and this revelation made me increasingly frustrated.  At one point, I threw my rifle down, and said “when are we going to get to the top of this thing?” 

                “Never,” the soldier next to me replied (even though I hadn’t been talking to him).  “We never are.  There are no plateaus, there are only mountains.  Don’t think about getting to the top.  Concentrate on how you climb.” 

                That was good advice.  By assuming there was no plateau, I was able to stop thinking about how good it would feel to walk on level ground.  By accepting that I would always be climbing, I was able to start focusing on climbing as efficiently as possible.  I realized that when the physical relief of the mythical plateau had been my sole goal, I had been in dangerous haste to get there.  I had not been picking the best route up and conserving my energy for the really difficult stretches.  Because I only wanted the pain of the climb to end, I had rushed forward with that in mind, becoming physically and mentally depleted by both the effort and the disappointment of each false crest.  Ultimately, by  throwing my rifle down, I ceased being a soldier and became a disarmed man—easy pickings for the waiting enemy. 

                I believe it is man’s nature to seek the mythical plateau in many things other than climbing mountains.  Whether it is physical fitness, marriage or our view of eternity, we distract ourselves from the pain of the climb by rushing toward a utopic end-state where we hope that no further pain or effort will be required.  I have found this to be a dangerous way to live, because it leads to frustration, exhaustion and ultimately the self-deceit that one has reached a safe and suitable place where the climbing can stop.  But that place does not exist.  The false crest is not a place where one may rest.  In all things that matter, we are either Climbing Up Or Sliding Back.