The Burdens We Carry

 

 

We are all asked to carry some of the burdens of others.  Whether it be the unhealed wounds of our parents, the addiction of a child, the losses of the refugee or orphan, the pain of others flows through the same channels of love. It can be hard to keep your balance holding this kind of pain and vulnerability.  We suffer because it does not lie within our power to make things better.  And yet, shouldering these burdens, holding some of the pain and confusion does give respite and some lightness to those we carry within our hearts.  And because it makes us tender, this work that we do for one another brings us greater capacity for healing ourselves and the world.

While knowing these things gives purpose to the burdens I carry, it is still hard and sometimes nearly impossible work.  I am reminded of my friend who just lost her mother, the father who walks beside his adult child in addiction, the sister of the incarcerated brother and my heart aches. I carry the burden of caring for my mother in her old age and cognitive decline.  There are many days when I dread this burden and feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of it. I am always a little more tender because of this aching in my heart and when I am with others, I am more tender with them knowing that they too ache. 

I see the pictures of the grandmothers of Sudan holding their starving and dying grandchildren, the orphans of Gaza, all those living in war and am connected to them through my own tender heart. Once cannot walk a spiritual path that does spread wide enough to encompass the suffering of others. For then it becomes a life of denial, suppression, shallowness. It is through my own suffering that I am learning, little by little, how to be more loving and patient with others to be a little less self-centered in my own thinking and actions, more generous and giving.