Travel light

Our journey in this world is truly a constant movement of time, persons, places and events. It is never stationary although it is just temporary. This constant motion may be in chronological order like when we advance in age and grow older during which we realize more clearly and intensely these movements in our life. Or it may also be cyclical like the events taking place in our lives which may keep on recurring, the persons we encounter through the years whom we may meet time and time again, and the places we have visited and revisited.

The journey becomes even more interesting and vivid during our married life as we start to establish our own family and build our own family home entering into important milestones. And this is the journey that my wife Josie and I, find worth sharing especially during these times when we are experiencing such movements and changes in our life.

The silver years of our married life are truly most memorable as we enjoy the company of our children and meet the challenges in educating and rearing them. They are really full of happy memories especially during those times when we enjoyed their warm companionship in the early years of their lives. Our nest was indeed quite filled not only with six siblings but with cherished and heart-warming moments of togetherness.

 But as we enter into the next phase of our life going into the golden years of our marriage, we experienced for the first time one of these constant movements when our children themselves started getting married and leaving us to establish their own family. This movement and gradual change in our married life happened over the years until we find ourselves alone again in a big house where our children grew up, although they regularly come and visit us for family reunions once a week.

And so the nest we built still seems to be empty now and quite big for the two of us. We thought that we have to somehow make another move not only for practical purposes but most importantly for the continuation of our journey in this world. We have to move to a smaller and cozier nest. Apparently our journey has reached a cycle as we started small nest that grew big only to become small again when our children started leaving us one by one. And we find such a move quite difficult indeed especially considering the tradition handed down to us of preserving our “ancestral home” for sentimental reasons.

Thus we found it quite heart rending and saddening when we gave up and sold our big house in exchange for a smaller one. The move is really disheartening because this is the place where we had some of the most wonderful times of our lives as husband and wife and parents to our six children. Transferring to a new and much smaller and somewhat cramped home is really physically inconvenient as we have to move our belongings which take a lot of time and effort. It is likewise emotionally draining as we have to dispose most of them to which we have developed some kind of attachment

But we thought that we had to do it especially during this time when we feel that our earthly sojourn is about to end and we are entering the departure area going towards the next life where we can find true and lasting happiness that does not depend on worldly possessions.

Indeed we felt that worldly possessions are just excess baggages that will slow us down or hinder us from reaching the final destination that God has given for us. To easily reach that final destination we really have to travel light.

And the most important message here which is applicable to all of us in this world, more particularly to those in powerful government positions who are so obsessed in acquiring power and wealth by hook or by crook, is that at the end of our life here on earth, we cannot bring with us into our grave any and all of the worldly possessions we have accumulated—our fame, fortune, power and glory. As the saying goes “Sic transit Gloria mundi”—All the Glory of this world passes. This is a truism that we always have to bear in mind as we continue our journey in this world.

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