Leaving My Stuff

“He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him.” -Dutch Proverb

In a few short days I will be getting on a plane for a very long flight to Japan. I’m going with a group from my church, First Baptist Dalton, to learn from the Japanese people about peacekeeping.

I’ve been waiting four years to visit there, ever since our church began supporting Laura and Carson Foushee, a lovely young missionary couple who work with Kanazawa Baptist Church. Carson and our ministers, Suzanne Hooie and Jonathan Barlow, have meticulously planned every detail of our two-week stay.

In addition to worshipping with several churches, we will be visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki and studying how the people there recovered from the most horrific bombing that has ever happened on our planet. We will learn about Japanese customs — being quiet when in public, taking off our shoes when we enter a building (and remembering to wear socks), and eating with chopsticks (I’ve been practicing). We will get to see the countryside from the train and even go to a baseball game, where I’m told they cheer for both teams.

But as the trip nears, my anxiety is mounting. For the last few weeks I have been obsessing on what to take. Heaven forbid that I get to Japan and need something!

Is everyone this way, or is it because I haven’t been on a big trip in three years? Maybe if I jetted around the world more often, I would take it all in stride.

I’m reminded of the hilarious old George Carlin skit about stuff — that our houses are just places to keep our stuff while we go out and get more stuff. Then, when we go on vacation, we worry about what stuff we will take with us and worry about locking up all our stuff while we are away. When we get to our hotel room, we quickly put away all our stuff, thinking, “Wow, my stuff doesn’t fill up all the space. I better get more stuff!”

If you aren’t familiar with this classic, or haven’t heard it in a while, take a listen here (and excuse some bad language, it is after all, George Carlin.)

Sadly, Carlin’s skit hits too close to home. Most of us are too attached to our stuff, including myself. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose my home to fire or tornado or war

The atomic bomb survivors lost literally everything — how do they feel about stuff?

These are the types of questions we will be exploring on our trip. How are we alike and different? How do our views of God reflect our attitudes towards peacekeeping? What can we learn from each other?

I’m reminding myself that traveling is not about what is in my suitcase, or what comes home in my bag, but about getting out of my comfort zone and expanding my world. Once the stress of packing is behind me and I am out the door, I look forward to the adventure that awaits.

Hopefully when I return home, I will have grown and changed, and the stuff won’t mean quite as much.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch