Unpacking My Invisible Luggage

Dear reader,

Today, I'm wrestling with a profound thought from the Sermon on the Mount. It feels like God is teaching me about spiritual expansion—how growth isn't about accumulating, but about letting go.

I've been thinking about how easily I get attached to small things. A criticism. A lost opportunity. A minor possession. And how these attachments actually make me smaller, not larger. It's like I'm wearing garments that restrict my movement, my spirit.

But there's something deeper I'm realizing today. The baggage I carry isn't just about current possessions or immediate circumstances. It's the weight of past experiences—old wounds, forgotten hurts, unresolved memories that I've been carrying like invisible luggage. These memories are perhaps the heaviest garments of all.

I think about the stories I've told myself. The narratives of hurt, of limitation, of who I am based on what has happened to me. Each memory is like a layer of clothing that I've wrapped around myself for protection, but which now feels suffocating. Some of these layers are so old, I've forgotten I'm wearing them.

What would it look like to truly lay these down? Not to forget—but to release their power over me. To recognize that I am not defined by what happened, but by what can happen. That my past can be a teacher, but it doesn't have to be a prison.

What would it look like to be truly free? To respond to life's demands not with resistance, but with a kind of transcendent spaciousness? When someone asks something of me, can I see it as an opportunity for growth rather than an imposition?

I'm realizing how often I've been a "small" person. Quick to anger. Quick to defend. Measuring my worth by what I can hold onto, protect, or control. But that's not the life I'm called to. I'm called to something larger.

The challenge is in the moment. When someone takes something. When I'm demanded of. When I'm pushed beyond my comfort. Can I choose enlargement over protection? Can I choose grace over rights?

It's not about being a doormat. It's about being so deeply rooted in a larger life that external circumstances can't shake me. That my response comes from a place of abundance, not scarcity.

These past experiences—they don't have to be chains. They can be stepping stones. Each memory, each hurt, can be transformed from a weight that holds me down to a wisdom that lifts me up. It's about perspective. About choosing to see differently.

I want to be someone who grows. Who keeps expanding. Who isn't defined by what's been taken, but by what can be given. Who can look at the landscape of past experiences and see not a battlefield, but a garden of potential.

Lord, enlarge my heart. Expand my capacity. Help me to see each moment—past, present, and future—not as a threat, but as an invitation.

Help me to travel light.

Until next time

Chaplain Mark