The things I'll carry

In Tim O’Brien’s 1987 short story, The Things They Carried, a group of soldiers slogs through the jungles of Vietnam. They’re burdened with everything from flak jackets (6.7 pounds each) to M16s (7.5 pounds unloaded; 8.2 pounds with a full 20-round magazine) to a guy named Kiowa carrying “his grandmother’s distrust of the white man.” Essentially a poeticized gear list, the story takes a sideways glance at the horrors of war. I first read the much-anthologized tale aloud with Gianna and Gwyneth at Jug Handle Ranch, and it brought all of us to tears.

I won’t be carrying a gun or flak jacket on my walk but I will be carrying a St. Benedict medal for my friend William, the only kind sanctified by the Catholic church for use in exorcisms. William wants me to leave the medal at the feet of the statue of St. James, but I’ll also be happy to have the medal’s protection as I walk the Camino. William said I could say that much about what I’ll be carrying for him; I’m hoping he wants to elaborate and will do so in a comment. It’s a very interesting story, but all he'll say about it at present is, "I confess to having suffered from periods of excessive religiosity in my life."

So I’m narrowing down my equipment list and I’ve started to receive the prayers and messages and medals friends and family would like me to carry on the Camino and deliver to Saint James at pilgrimage’s end.

Most people I’ve made the offer to (‘Is there anything you want me to carry for you?’) are taken aback, responding, “Hmmm. Interesting. I’ll definitely have to think about that.” I understand not having an immediate answer—I wonder, too, what prayers I’m carrying for myself along the route.

Two people I made the offer to had immediate responses, and I think that one's first impulse is probably the best and most honest. If I don’t ovethink the question, what comes up for me is that I’ll be carrying my unbelief. Or the patchwork of suspicion and superstition I label unbelief. I may be an unbeliever, strictly speaking, in the Catholic faith, but what I’m more concerned with is a general lack of faith—in the world, in the people around me, but most of all, in myself.

That’s one reason I want to do this walk alone—to prove to myself than I can. And to trust the world and my fellow pigrims to help me along my way.

For those to whom I’ve made the offer: I don’t make it lightly, and there’s still time for you to tell me what you’d like me to carry. Your entrusting me with something of yours that you value—an idea, a message—shows that you have faith in me, which pushes me to have more faith in myself. Even after I’m on the road you can get to me through this blog or email. And if anyone who asks me to carry something for them along the way wants to elaborate on what it is, you could post a comment. And thanks to HP for the photos of the St. Benedict medal.