losing weight

I've been thinking lately about losing weight. And not in the usual way. As the calendar reads Spring, I've discovered that one of the benefits of living in a climate without seasons is that you don't have to endure all the get- ready- for -your- bikini articles. But I have more weight-loss issues than the ones my scale and mirror create.

This morning I experienced again the relief I always feel at the airport when, after struggling with luggage whose wheels never run smoothly, whose handles never fit my hands just right, whose weight and bulk trip me up over and over again, I hoist it onto the conveyor belt and watch it disappear into a dark tunnel, knowing I will not see it again till it magically reappears at the end of my journey. As I leave the check in counter I always fumble around for a moment, feeling as if I have forgotten something, feeling too light, too unencumbered for the trip I'm taking. Then I remember that I am no longer responsible for that weight. I can take the escalator, go to the restroom solo, squeeze into a tiny booth at the coffee shop, browse in the bookstore; it's not my responsibility any more. Someone is taking care of it for me.

The weight of all the things I could not leave home without. . .things which seemed so essential as I crammed them into my suitcase; Now I find I can scarcely remember what is in the bag I just checked. If I had to make an inventory I might forget half of it. Even if it never shows up again, I'll probably be just fine. I'm so happy to surrender it to the man behind the counter; I just don't want to fight with it anymore.

Why is is so hard for me to travel light? Why do I never remember when it's time to set off again what I learned last time. . . that, in the words of Jesus, "only a few things are necessary". Why can I not remember the relief of being relieved of my baggage, both literal and figurative?

As I was shaking my head over my reluctance to shed those pounds, I remembered a picture which has been in my mind for several years now. . . a scene I witnessed once at the small Vermont lake where my children used to swim. I sat on the beach and watched as an elderly woman with a walker slowly approached the water. She made her way across the gritty sand in an old, faded bathing suit, moving her walker forward step by step right into the cold water. She leaned hard on the walker for stability until the water reached her hips or so, and then she slipped into the dark coolness and was free, the ugly walker left standing in three feet of water looking utterly out of place in the glow of the late afternoon sun reflecting off the deep green surface.

For a time she was free - weightless and graceful as a girl again, no longer hobbled by the walker, by the aching joints and the feeble bones, buoyed up by the water which carried her as easily as it carried the children splashing nearby.
I could not shake the image of rebirth, of rejunvenation I had witnessed. For nights I actually lay awake wondering at it. I imagined how she must have hated to come back; to give up the liberty of the water for the weight of her aging body on the shore. I wondered if she would ever decide not to return - to just stay in the water and let someone else retrieve the symbol of her weakness and frailty, to just let it rust. I wondered how she could ever bear it again.

I felt as if I had watched something very profound, something almost like a revelation. I felt as if I were watching a preview of her death, and my own, a final laying aside of every weight and infirmity and slipping into the comforting depths, feeling the years slip away and the weight of mortal flesh which has become increasingly hard to carry dissolve, becoming bouyant once again.

So I've been considering these two stories about weight which seem to have little in common, but are really just a few more earthly images of heavenly Realities - opportunities to stop and remember yet again that the things which are seen are not the only things that Are. It is good to be reminded of the need to lay aside the weight that so easily besets us as we journey through this life- the things we can't seem to bring ourselves to leave home without. Life maybe a series of lessons about the weight of all those things we can't seem to leave behind, leading up to that day when we may ,through Christ, finally achieve a lovely weightlessness - free from the weight of our sinful flesh that has dogged our steps for all our lives.




All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight
You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom
Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can’t sell it, can’t buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme...