Saying goodbye to my passport, and our many adventures together....

This month I said goodbye to my favorite book. It’s sad that I’ll never be able to use it again. It’s served me well; we’ve been through so much together and it was harder than I thought it would be to let him go.

Yes, my passport has been amazing and it’s difficult to part. But it was only a matter of time till all the pages were filled with stamps and visas, and I finally had to send it off to get renewed. We’ll never be able to have adventures again.

I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to objects that have deeper meaning and a story behind their mere physicality. I think my passport is the one object I have that’s been through the most with me (right up there with my flip-flops; we go everywhere together).

We’ve survived a lot together, my passport and I. The first time I traveled with it was going to Iraq in 2015 (a really bad time to be in that country; ISIS was quite the threat at the time). As was to become typical of my travels, we had flight complications and ended up in Egypt for a few days. So away we went, my trusty passport and I, riding camels in the Sahara, climbing pyramids, and other adventures.

My passport has been handled by countless militia fighters in the Middle East. It’s gotten me though checkpoints of any number of fighter groups in Iraq (including one I can’t name since it’s labeled a terrorist group by my country). It was confiscated by some Syrian militia members, who captured me and another aid worker in a remote stretch of no man’s land by the front line with ISIS. They took us up to the border of Syria, and I wasn’t sure I would ever see my passport again (that would have been sad). But their commander decided to be nice and let us go in one piece. Having my passport handed back and being allowed to leave peacefully is probably the most relieved I’ve ever felt in my life.

I was spending time with another aid organization in Liberia (West Africa). We came to a checkpoint and an armed guard, seeing Americans in the vehicle, stopped us and asked for an American passport. I handed mine over, and it disappeared as he immediately made for a house nearby. So there we sat; apparently he wanted a bribe, which I wasn’t about to give him. Our driver, a Liberian pastor from the area, went to the house to discuss the matter with him. Turns out, the pastor recognized the fighter as someone who attends his church! After a stirring rebuke, the ashamed guard handed my passport over to his pastor; I’m guessing they had an interesting interaction at church the next Sunday.

Another time, my passport got me (technically illegally) on a flight to Baghdad without an official Iraqi visa. I didn’t need a visa for the Kurdish region of Iraq that I was leaving from, but because of a potentially impending war (during the Kurdish referendum; I made a video about it) there was no way out of the country, other than through the Baghdad airport. Incredibly, they let me on the flight. After extensive amounts of stress and questioning in Baghdad, a very helpful security officer (who didn’t speak any English) took my passport, helped me get my luggage, checked me into my flight, and then insisted customs accept my passport to stamp me out of the country (again, I never even entered Baghdad legally and didn’t have a visa). After a bit of an argument, the border agent stamped me out of Iraq. The helpful officer gave my passport back, and with a twinkle in his eye, walked away. I couldn’t believe it. That stamp is the one that means the most to me. It shows I left Iraq, but never even entered it. Some days I think that officer was an angel in disguise.

Yes, we’ve had a lot of adventures together. My passport has accompanied me to the tops of the Alps, to the lowest point on Earth (the Dead Sea), was taken by Israeli police because they thought I had ties to terrorists, been in a war zone, took me to 20 different countries, investigated towering cathedrals, got wet in the Tigris River (and the Nile), and a host of other places.

In the end, physical things will perish. Material possessions are temporary. But what gives an object meaning is the story behind it. What is the deeper meaning? Where has this object been, and what stories can it tell? I’ll never travel with that passport again. Its usefulness is officially over. But its meaning and stories live on. If you come visit Trish and I, you will notice we fill our home with things that have a deeper meaning. Physical things are temporary, but they can point us to something so much deeper and richer. In a way, this gives life beauty and a rootedness that is hard to put into words.

I suppose that if there is a lesson to all this, it would be to fill your life with meaningful things. Physical objects have their place, but pursuit of a life of rich meaning is so much more valuable and permanent.

If you found this interesting, here’s a video I made the last time I was in Iraq, about why you should take every chance you can to travel. Enjoy!