:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

After a week of traveling from camp ground to camp ground, I find it strange to return to our tiny apartment that now feels like a palace with so many incredible conveniences and luxuries. Having bookshelves, carpet, and even a bathroom all to myself seems like I’m on top of the world.

As many backpackers have surely found out as well, living the rustic life at camp sites and in the woods has a way of adding needed perspective to our lives. I’m not interested in making such a lifestyle my norm, but it speaks to the way that one addition to our lives leads to another, just as the subtraction of one may lead to another.

For example, when we bought a house a few years ago, I began to think of shelving, furniture, and who knows what else to fully deck the place out. I had spare rooms that could be set up to my taste and don’t even get me started on our over-sized garage. I think I filled it all up pretty easily.

And that’s the tension we feel in life. As we expand, we add things for better or for worse. I develop attachments to new things, and I sometimes would say I can’t imagine life without them. What I really mean to say is that I’ve developed a habit, not necessarily a “need.”

While on vacation I pondered what it meant to seek first the Kingdom of God, and I thought of my lessons over the days of camping out. It seemed to me that identifying my attachments and true necessities is a good skill to cultivate for effective Kingdom living.