Old Clothes
It was a morning cooler than usual. Like me, she is an early riser; unlike me, she takes long walks to get there. As happens also in church, in the coffee shop we have our regular seats. We know each other’s name but don’t talk much. On this morning, as she gathered up her things to go, I noted her interesting jacket. Yes, she said; she showed me the back as well—it was covered with small embroidery, rather fancy for the Katy Trail. “I’ve had it for 30 years but mostly it just hung in my closet. Then I said to myself, When do I think I’m going to wear it? After I’m dead?” So, being very clearly alive, she is wearing it.
I had some T-shirts from 40 or 50 years ago—three of them even older than that. I had seldom worn them. They were mementos of places I had been and places my in-laws had been (as in, “they got to see the Galapagos, I got the T-shirt”). (Though I do like the T-shirt.) How many times had I moved these basically unworn garments? I can think of at least six. After the last, I decided to start wearing them. They are wearing out now, one by one being turned into rags.
What had I been waiting for? It was foolish not to enjoy them, foolish to think that they were mementos that should be eternally preserved.
On the other hand, there was great enjoyment had by my coffee shop companion as she wore that nice jacket. Had she worn it out earlier, she would have missed this current satisfaction. It was like a piece of the last century that suddenly appeared, aglow with the crisp lustre of being new while simultaneously being a gift of the past; it was like two different periods of her life being present at the same time.
Then I realized the same: when I wear that Galapagos T-shirt, I am bringing my wife’s parents back into the present moment, remembering their love of archeology and biological science while also remembering their love of a rather young son-in-law and of our fledgling children.
A guy in line at that coffee shop asked me if I had been to the Galapagos. “No,” I grinned; “my wife’s parents gave me the T-shirt.” He had lived in Ecuador and said that, while he didn’t have the T-shirt, he had seen the Galapagos. They are, to all reports, worth seeing.
But more important, I think, than traveling to visit interesting places, is the work of putting our lives together as a coherent thing. It’s so easy to think of our lives as a bunch of episodes that happen to have followed one after another, but what is it that knits our whole life together? How can each of our lives be (by God’s grace) one narrative, one story? Maybe it is good to save some things—not for ever, but for future use. We won’t use them after we’re dead! There is likely something in your closet right now that you could bring out and start wearing.
Putting the pieces of your life together is part of the work of being a pilgrim, whether you do it in Spain or in Texas or somewhere else. What is God doing with your life? What is the story that holds your life together? It’s a good question to ask.
And there might be a clue waiting for you in your closet.