the sentient spirit

What baggage are you carrying?

During my 10 years serving as an active university president, travel to various meetings and to visiting benefactors was an essential component of my vocation. Fortunately, my wife joined me on many of these trips, which was wonderful for me. However, each of us had a significantly different concept of how much baggage we would need and how much we needed to pack for our trips. My goal for travel was to return home with a suitcase filled only with used clothes, while my wife enjoyed carrying extras so that each event had multiple possibilities of outfits. Our different styles of packing at times led to friction as to bag sizes and their respective weights.

Recently, I was listening to a former NFL football player named Gary Shamiel, who, after a modest football career, started a career as a public speaker with a focus on the concept of the emotional baggage we carry with us on a daily basis that inhibits our ability to live life to its fullest. He equated emotional baggage to luggage we carry around in the trunks of our cars, where we may clean the outside of our cars but seldom empty out our trunks. Just as the car is weighed down by all of this baggage and cannot perform to its fullest, we are weighed down by our emotional baggage. He suggests that each of us should spend some time cleansing our souls of that baggage.

In the Scriptures, Jesus makes it very clear that in order for the apostles to be effective in their ministries, they needed to shed their physical and emotional baggage:

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick — – no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. The Twelve drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

The Scripture passage above provides us with a wonderful lesson of how we can effectively follow the example of Jesus. By shedding their physical and emotional baggage, the apostles were able to work miracles such as driving out demons and curing the sick. I am convinced that in the passage above, Jesus was referring to individuals who did not listen to the apostles, as those who carried too much baggage were unable to provide fertile ground for the proliferation of God’s word.

Just as the apostles gained strength in shedding their baggage, we can equally become stronger by letting go of feelings we are holding onto that prevent us from freely accepting Jesus and listening to His word. What’s in your trunk?

THE SENTIENT SPIRIT

DR. JOHN SMARRELLI, JR.,

president emeritus, Christian Brothers University