A Mission: A Heavenly Campaign

(Tanner leaving his training center district...)

"In Stephen Crane’s Red Badge of Courage, Crane narrates a battle in which Henry Fleming—the youthful main character—charges the enemy lines across what seems to be a vast open field, over the course of what seems to be an hour. Then, after the charge has concluded, Crane writes, “The youth in this contemplation was smitten with a large astonishment. He discovered that the distances, as compared with the brilliant measurings of his mind, were trivial and ridiculous. The stolid trees, where much had taken place, seemed incredibly near. The time, too, now that he reflected, he saw to have been short. He wondered at the number of emotions and events that had been crowded into such little spaces. Elfin thoughts must have exaggerated and enlarged everything, he said.”  

(After flying out of Sao Paulo, first view of Londrina...)

Crane’s prose is beautiful and worth close attention, but I’ve included this passage particularly because it seems to capture a truth about mission life. Time on the mission—like time on the battlefield, as Crane suggests—seems to stretch out indefinitely, and every event seems to be of epic proportions, whether that’s the disappointment of investigators who don’t show up for an appointment or the joy of a baptismal service. 

(Saying good byes and hellos...Tanner's first companion Elder Cummings, 2nd from left, and his new companion, Elder Bennett, 3rd...)

It’s hard to gain a proper perspective on your own emotions and actions but someday you, like Henry Fleming, will come to see and think about your current experiences on a mission in very different terms. Your service won’t be any less important (it is, like Henry’s charge, a matter of life and death)—but it will be framed in the larger context of your post-mission life as one brief moment in a larger heavenly campaign. Hard to fully appreciate in the middle of that charge (especially if you’re being showered with the adversary’s bullets)—but true!"

(Thanks!) Uncle Zach

(Elder Cummings, photos)