New wine, old skins.

Travel is about going to new places. You would be disappointed if you went somewhere outside your normal routine and nothing was different. Because you travel to get out of your normal element, don't you? We go to explore, to learn, to see new things, to have experiences and adventures, all running on the foundation that we want to see differences from the world we're accustomed to. Yet we don't always take into account the change travel will bring about in us. We gloss it over with glamour, forgetting how disorienting and alarming it can be to thrust oneself into a new place.

"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." (Mt 9:16-17)

I never understood this. I thought it was oddly placed, and a strange concept. What does Jesus have against recycling? :P

But in the process of the last 3 days, I've begun to ponder...

Maybe before we can really learn about other people, we have to first be thrust out of what we know of ourselves, such as how we normally operate and who we normally associate with. This process often feels immensely like being alone, feeling homesick, wishing you weren't so lost and disoriented, wandering what the hell you were thinking making all these changes, etc. But perhaps the new experiences wouldn't quite fit in the old person, or maybe the old person might not listen or pay attention as well. Often we have to go through change before a new perspective can fully be grasped, otherwise it simply floats over our heads, and we don't even realize we've missed anything huge. 

To receive the new wine, first the old skin must be replaced. The old skins will tear and the new wine will be spilled and ruined. So perhaps first, what feels like a breaking point, losing control, or even a feeling theoretically represented by dying has to happen, so that we can be made ready to receive the new wine. (It's not an uncommon analogy either. The seed falls to the ground and dies before the flower is able to grow from it. The mustard seed must be crushed and broken for its power to be released. The caterpillar has to undergo a transformation that would seem to obliterate the caterpillar before the butterfly can be born.) Perhaps first it has to feel like we're losing everything, even if the only thing we have left to lose is the excitement we thought would take us through the roof from day one, and it hasn't arrived yet like we expected. But the glimmer of hope is that when all is lost, all is left to gain, and only when new wineskins have been made in us can we be ready to receive the new wine (i.e. new perspective, new understanding, etc).

For example, if you want to be in better relationships, it won't help just to find a new one, but first you'll need to build better habits when forming relationships, and make better choices in the process. If you wish to be more patient, don't just spend time with people that don't test your patience, thus avoiding all opportunity to develop patience. Instead, practice being patient with the situations that do push your patience. The answer to the problem of religion is not a new religion, but relationship. The answer to the problem of the law is not a new law, but grace and learning how to truly love one another unconditionally. Certainly you don't give a child a diamond ring to play with, for the child has not yet learned the proper means with which to truly appreciate a diamond ring. And often we don't get the answers we're looking for until we first hammer out the issues with our question.

By leaving all we knew and venturing forth into a strange new world, we did ask for the new wine. We wanted growth, change, answers, adventure, and something other than the predictable path. But I don't think we realized how much of that involves a growth and stretching process, filled with emotions and experiences that aren't always glamorous. We cannot see a new world, new perspective, with old eyes. We can only see as we have always seen with the old eyes. We have to first be willing to let go of the tight grip upon ourselves, our pride, our orientations of the world around us, our preconceived notions. Only when we let go and start to listen and change can we really experience the adventure to its fullest extent.

-S

“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” 

– Cesare Pavese