Don’t Carry it All

I don’t know how all of y’all are feeling about this present moment in geo-politics and life in the world. It feels heavy to me. Really heavy. So when I was looking for something to open our worship committee meeting this past Monday and stumbled on the opening line of a meditation by Howard Thurman I knew it was the one I needed.

“In these turbulent times,” Thurman begins in the essay “Life Goes On.” And though writing over 70 years ago, he could as soon have been writing about this year. Or almost any year at all.

Indeed, he says about Meditations of the Heart, the collection of essays of which this one is a part

 “they are addressed to some of the deep and insistent needs of the human spirit, which needs know no age, clime, culture or group…Their purpose is to focus the mind and heart upon God as the Eternal Source and Goal of Life.”

In this essay Thurman holds in balance the reminder to focus on gratitude for the little gifts of bird song and the gleam of stars, and yet to not shrink from “the evilness of evil.” I found this reminder of the importance of returning my gaze to God’s gifts around me in balance with the overwhelm of war and injustice in the world to be a helpful and hopeful boost.

One of the reasons I really appreciate Thurman’s work is that I know he was writing for a community, writing for beloved people who carried the weight of the world’s evils and their own struggles and joys together. He wasn’t theorizing but encouraging a particular people to share the burden. And again that knowledge gives me hope.

The Portland band (and one of my favorites) The Decemberists have a song that has been buoying me up this week with that same reminder. While their lyrics can be a little obtuse, there is clarity in the lines:

Here we come to a turning of the season
Witness to the arc towards the sun
The neighbor's blessed burden within reason
Becomes a burden borne of all in one…

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders
Don't carry it all, don't carry it all
We are all our hands in holders
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun

Don’t carry it all! Together we share the joy and the burden of responding to the great weight of the world. Together we share the joys and responsibilities and sorrows the small spheres of our lives.

—-

Here’s a youtube link to the song but the whole album is worth listening to. They recruited Gillian Welch on the harmonies, which makes it extra awesome.