Take One Tunic

My second tunic/sweatshirt and lots more stuff.

I'm off to Rome, or more precisely, Albano Laziale, the small town just outside of Rome where the Vatican Observatory is situated, just behind the gates to the papal gardens.  As I packed, my mind kept drifting back to the Gospel from two Sundays back. 

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey
but a walking stick—
no food, no sack, no money in their belts.
They were, however, to wear sandals
but not a second tunic.  (Mark 6:8-9)

Yes.  Well.  I have packed a snack, have a checked bag and a carry on, stashed my miscellaneous euros in my wallet.  I definitely packed a second tunic (and a third and a fourth...).  I'm not wearing sandals, though I did pack a pair.  It sounds like an all around fail, new evangelization or old, even before you consider my electronics.

It got me thinking about what the modern version of sandals and a walking stick might be?  Or that second tunic that Matthew suggests might be allowed.  Walking shoes?  A phone? What reminds me of my origin and my destination, of the source of what I have?

If I could take just one thing, and trust that the rest would be provided, what would it be?  My laptop. A virtual tunnel to almost anywhere, to information, to communications, to clothes and food. A battery for electronics.  Though  the more I think about it,  perhaps my laptop is not a sign of radical dependence, but of stubborn independence.