The Things We Carry

So they set out to build a road.  

A road to pave the way. 

To pave the way to places that had never been explored. 

They packed everything they could think of to help them on their journey. It was going to be epic.

They had no idea what was out there. So much ground to cover. So many challenges to encounter.  Deserts that threatened to lay them bare. Jungles that nearly swallowed them up. Trees to step around. Animals to run from.  Wide open spaces where it seemed like nothing could possibly grow.  Thick tangled messes where it seemed like nothing could possibly pass.

And there were amazing treasures to behold. Unobstructed sunsets unlike anything they had ever seen. Glittering rivers that held more bounty than they could believe. Amazing scenes that they could never forget.

So they made their way. To pave the way. The lot of them with their baggage. They hauled their equipment for making the way. 

 Day after day. And left a ribbon of road stretching out behind them. That others could follow.

Until one day they came to a huge mountain.  It loomed over them. An immovable obstacle.  And the captain of the group said, "This is unlike anything we have seen before, but we must pave the way.  We must go forward.  We must go over."

So the men strapped their equipment to their backs.  They loaded their heavy baggage and headed up the mountain to pave the way.  But they could not progress.  They lightened their load. But they still made no progress. It was one step forward and two steps back.  

One of the crew said, "Captain, we are not equipped to climb this mountain.  We do not have the right tools.  We do not have the right experience."

And the captain proclaimed, "We cannot go over.  But we cannot go back. We must go around.  Let us find a way around.”

So the group traveled east for days and days.  And the mountains got taller and taller.  And there did not seem to be a way around.  

One of the men said to the captain, "This cannot be the way.  We must go back to where we started and try the other way."

So they retraced their steps to the place where they had first met the mountain and they tried the western route.  They had traveled for many days and nights when one of the men said, “Captain we have gone so far and we have not made any progress.  We have gone from east to west and side to side. We have walked for days and days but we have not gone forward.  We have not paved the way.”

The captain was defeated. He said, “This mountain cannot be conquered. Maybe this is the end of our journey. Maybe this is the place we are supposed to be.”

And there was a voice from the back of the group that said, “Captain, there is another way.”

“What is this way? There does not seem to be another way.”  And a young man came forward with a box that read TNT.

“Captain. This box contains something amazing that will let us go through the mountain.” said the young man.

And the company laughed.

“Boy, you have no experience!”

“Ha! What do you know?”

“You have been nowhere. Done nothing! This cannot possibly be true.”

“Nobody goes through a mountain.”

And the young man said, “I assure you Captain. The contents of this box will allow us to go through the mountain. I cannot imagine the perils that await us on the inside of this obstacle, but if we are careful, and we learn as we go, we can make our way through to the other side.”

The Captain said, “Boy! We have had this box all long and you said nothing?”

“Yessir. We did not need this box the cross the river.  We did not need this box to cross the desert. The contents of this box would not have made the sunsets more beautiful or helped us to gather the treasures along the way. We have not needed it yet. But we have had it all along. Yes.”

So they began to go through the mountain. It was slow. And it was treacherous. The men were terrified and the way was dark. 

But it was forward. And that felt good, because they had not been moving forward for a long time.

Before they knew it the first cracks of light began to show.  And the cracks became beams of light and the beams became spaces to gaze through.  When they finally emerged from the other side of the mountain they looked back on the immovable obstacle that had stalled their progress for so long.  

The Captain proclaimed, “That is one huge mountain.”

And the young man said, “No sir, actually, now it has become just one more thing we had to get through.”

It's a mountain my friend, but it's only a mountain.

What have you carried with you all this way that will make that mountain just one more thing you’ve got to get through?