March 6, 2024
Three pairs of socks.
In high school, I took part in a church youth group hiking trip that spent six days in the woods of northern Maine. On most days we walked between six and eight miles, and the trip included an ascent of Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine, which stands 5,270 feet above sea level.
Which is less than Kohala here on Hawai’i Island, but it seemed very impressive at the time.
I was accustomed to wearing a fresh pair of socks each day. Wearing the same socks two days in a row while hiking in them seemed like a guarantee of smelly feet (and it was). But there was something more important than the odors of hard-working human bodies on that trip.
Burdens.
Every ounce we didn’t pack was an ounce we didn’t carry. Every ounce we didn’t carry was an easier stride on the trail. Every easier stride on the trail was a shorter hike. Every shorter hike was a camp reached before dark and a hot meal for dinner.
Lent is also about shedding burdens. As we move through the season, we have opportunity after opportunity to set down the things that burden our spirits. Classically, that’s guilt, and for certain our sense of guilt weighs us down. God forgives. Let it go.
There are other burdens, too. There’s self-doubt. There’s anger. There’s regret. There’s the feelings we’ve refused to deal with. There’s the relationships we haven’t reconciled.
Let it go.
Setting them aside isn’t as easy as not packing three more pairs of socks, but you’ll be lighter on your journey, and oh, how you’ll be able to celebrate when Easter comes.
In peace,
Pastor Eric
