I just returned from an amazing trip to London, where my favorite and only sister is living with her fiancé.

This city enthralls me, excites me and at the same time gives me a great sense of peace.

It’s great to be able to spend precious time with my sister and brother-in-law-to-be as well as enjoying the courteous English people who never cease to amaze me with their friendly unasked advice when they catch you struggling to hold a fumbled tourist map on the double-decker bus.

I’m also loving the Anglican churches around London which I try to visit every day to get my spiritual food (figuratively and literally). I found out — to my surprise — that those churches are even present on Twitter nowadays.

On past visits I used to drag this enormous suitcase to London, which is a total pain because  London tube stations are mostly surrounded by steep staircases, unsuitable for disabled people, or even tourists dragging excess baggage…

I must pause and correct myself in all honesty here – on my way there I used to drag a ginormous empty suitcase…to fill it up with heaps of newly purchased clothing from the Monsoon’s season sale. So, on the way back it would cost me a lot of stress to carry it around with me, it being way too heavy.

This time was different though:

I travelled light and left my excess baggage at home as well as at Monsoon, feeling rested and peaceful and keeping my credit card happy at the same time with the positive side-effect of frugality, because there is a cosmic rule that says: what you don’t buy, you don’t get to hurl around on the London tube.

How did I travel light?

• I left all my toiletries at home and plundered my sister’s bathroom instead.
• I took only one changing of clothes (but enough underwear!) with me and only wore the trousers I had on me.
• I took only half the portions of my regular vitamin pills with me.
• My final and best secret was: taking my Amazon Kindle (E-reader) with me for the first trip ever. I tell you why it is such a nifty device for light travellers:

• 1. It’s got my 1200-ish page Bible on it
  2. It’s got my 1000-ish page Book of Common Prayer on it
  3. It can store a stunning 1500 books (as well as pdf’s) if you like
  4. I can take all my blogs with me via the file I can drag from www.instapaper.com to my Kindle
  5. It is the size of a dvd and weighs only as much as one regular paperback book.

Now I found there’s a spiritual parallel to this story as well:

What kind of excess baggage do you carry around with you?

• Is it your past, your childhood?
• Is it the grudge you hold against someone?
• Is it fear or anxiety?
• Is it a secret you don’t dare to confess to anyone?
• Is it stress, fretfulness?
• Is it shame or guilt about things you did or things you didn’t do?
• Is it the shreds of lost dreams?
• Is it the bits and pieces of a shattered self-image?
• Is it your distorted view of God?
• Is it the memory of lost lovers?

I dare you: let go, be in the present moment and travel light through life.