The Baggage Wagon
How much are we hauling around from life to life?
We accumulate so much baggage over the course of our lives. So much of it, we clear out of our minds to be dealt with later. Over a long life, we accumulate more and more baggage and we never seem to have time to deal with old baggage. We do not even have time to deal with the new baggage. We just toss it all on our baggage wagon.
We pull that baggage wagon behind us throughout our lives. It gets heavier and heavier and eventually slows down our movement. It becomes a real drag.
We keep thinking we can put off dealing with it all until later. We are not sure when later is but as long as we are putting it off until later then we do not have to deal with it as we live our lives — even though it can seriously cramp our traveling style.
Then one day — out of the blue, so to speak — we find ourselves on our deathbed. ‘Later’ suddenly arrives.
For many of us, our deathbed turns out to be a hospital bed. We wake up looking at the ceiling of a hospital room. Looking around us we see that we are hooked up to machines with wires and tubes. There is a metal railing on either side of our bed. It’s a little like that crib that we found ourselves in after we first came into our life.
We look to the side of our death bed and there is our baggage wagon, piled high with all the baggage we accumulated throughout our life which we put off dealing with. We suddenly realize that we have very little time left to deal with all that baggage.
Realizing that ‘later’ has arrived we start dealing with that baggage in our minds in frenzied haste. Mentally, we sort through all that baggage trying to figure out what to do with it and wondering why we left it all for the last minute.
Family and friends come through the hospital room door to visit us and offer us the opportunity to deal with parts of the baggage. We realize this is our last chance to fix things; to unload some of the baggage we have been carrying throughout our lives. We suddenly see all those people in a new light. We see how our love failed and how that contributed to the mountain of baggage on our baggage wagon. We try to fix things and empty the baggage wagon before time runs out.
Some of us do not even try. We just hold on to the baggage.
And then the alarm clock finally goes off and we find ourselves moving through a tunnel of white light. For those of us who have emptied our baggage wagon the journey through that tunnel is easy and joyous and smooth. For the rest of us, the journey is very hard because we are pulling our baggage wagons with us.
We come out of the tunnel into a very bright lobby. There are two signs leading to two hallways away from the lobby. We look at the two signs. One points in one direction and the sign reads, “Hell: for those with baggage wagons.” The other sign points in the other direction and reads, “Heaven: for those without baggage wagons.”
Reading the two signs we suddenly realize that….
…. BAGGAGE IS HELL!
But let us say that we are one who released all our baggage before the alarm clock went off so we take the hallway that leads in the direction of Heaven. That hallway takes us to a huge room that looks just like an airport terminal.
We see that there are several ticket counters and we walk up to one. Behind the counter is a beautiful being. (Depending on our preferences the being appears either as a male or female.) Instead of a name tag with wings like in a real airport, the being has actual real wings coming out of its back.
“May I help you?”
We look around and wonder what the heck is going on, “Uh…. is this Heaven and are you an angel?”
The being giggles, “Yes, I am an angel. And no, this is not heaven. This is the terminal where you can catch flights to heaven.”
“What? Uh…. well…. uh…. I’d like to book a flight to heaven.”
“Okey dokey,” says the angel. “I see that you have no baggage so we can book your flight somewhat quickly.”
“So, if I may ask, where exactly is Heaven?”
The angel slaps her/his hand down on the counter and laughs uproariously, “Well, silly, Heaven is where you just came from.”
We are stunned, “What?”
“Yes, you just arrived from Heaven and you are here to book a return passage.”
“Uh…. what? Are you seriously trying to tell me that where I just came from — planet Earth — is Heaven?”
“Well, of course! Didn’t you realize that?”
We are confused, “No, I thought Heaven was someplace we went to after we lived a life on planet Earth.”
The angel crossed his/her arms then raised one arm to put his/her chin on his/her hand, “Yes, that is the common misconception. Everyone in Heaven is conditioned by society to believe that Heaven is someplace other than where they are. It’s the old bait and switch. Most everyone falls for that. But seriously, Heaven is where you just came from.”
We are mortified by the realization.
“But what about all those people with loaded baggage wagons that went to Hell? Will they ever get to Heaven?”
The angel rolls his/her eyes, “Well, of course they will. But before they can book a return flight to Heaven they’ve got to spend some time stewing in their baggage and hopefully learning from it. Sure, they’ll get to return to Heaven but they will be bringing with them their baggage wagon. They will begin a new journey in Heaven but they will still have their baggage wagon with them and through their journey they will add to that baggage wagon making it even heavier and an even greater burden to carry around with them. Those returning to Heaven from this terminal will have an empty, or almost empty, baggage wagon when they arrive back in Heaven. Their journey will be lighter with a whole new spectrum of possibilities because they won’t have as much baggage to deal with.”
“Okay, book me a flight,” we say.
“Sure, but first you need to fill this out,” the angel hands us a clipboard with several pages of questions to fill out. “This will take some time so you may wish to go over there to our terminal lounge and fill out this questionnaire. Be sure to enjoy all the amenities. When you are finished just come back here and we will be able to book you a return flight to Heaven.”
Everything we were told (and told not to question) did not prepare us for this but we follow the angel’s instructions and walk off to the airport terminal lounge.
Entering the lounge area we realize that it is way, way, way nicer than any airport terminal lounge we had ever been in back on planet Heaven. It’s like a mini-paradise.
We find a chair and table next to a beautiful waterfall and sit down to fill out the questionnaire. It turns out to be a very lengthy questionnaire. There are many pages to it. There are questions about what our hopes and dreams and aspirations and fears and our deepest desires are. There are questions about what places in Heaven that we want to visit, what old friends we want to run into to, what kind of family we want to be part of, what learning experiences we want to encounter, and what kind of baggage we want to take on and (hopefully) release before our next visit to the airport terminal. The questions require specific answers but also require essays on our part as to what is deeply held in our hearts. The questionnaire takes into account how we want to direct our forthcoming journey.
We finally take the completed questionnaire to the terminal ticket counter and hand it to the angel. The angel takes the questionnaire (along with the clipboard it is attached to) and drops it into a slot in the counter. All sorts of weird computer noises ensue and then within about a minute, an itinerary appears on the computer screen on the ceiling above the angel’s head. And then a ticket starts printing out on the counter.
The angel smiles and pulls the ticket off the printer and puts it into an envelope, “Here is your ticket. It appears there will be an opening for you in October 2018. It is an opening that best matches your desires and the trajectory of your path. You have plenty of time before your flight so you may wish to go over to our heavenly cafe and enjoy a meal before your flight is ready. We will notify you in plenty of time to catch your flight.”
Somewhat dumbfounded, we take the ticket and proceed to the terminal cafe. We order a beer and some nachos. The nachos turn out to be better than any nachos we had ever had in any of our countless lives. They were, quite literally, to die for.
An angel finally comes to let us know that our flight is ready to board. We are excited. Part of that excitement comes from knowing that we will not have any baggage to claim. With non-physical head held high, we proceed to the ticket counter and then to the gate. As we board the flight we are trembling with excitement.
And then we wake up in a prison. Well, it seems like a prison at first. We seem to be surrounded by bars. But it is not a prison. It is a crib. We are freaked out so we start screaming and crying.
Eventually, a very tall human comes and picks us up out of our crib. She holds us to her chest and gently rocks us and whispers soothing words into our ear. She kisses our head. She rubs our back and tells us that everything is alright. She is warm and oozes love….
…. and we feel like we have finally reached Heaven.
She sways us to and fro as she soothes us with loving words. As she turns around we look over her shoulder at our crib. And next to our crib is our baggage wagon. If it is empty we smile. We know that we have a lifetime to fill it and a lifetime to release it. We have forgotten what might be in it and we are excited to fill it and we have no earthly idea how full it may be when we return to the crib of the hospital room.
We are in Heaven and we will most likely not think about our baggage wagon until it is time to end our visit and then book a new flight. We do not realize that we can empty our baggage wagon at any time during our journey. Who thinks about their baggage wagon when they are in the heavenly arms of a motherly angel?
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. See My Complete Archive of Stories Here
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