When the Weight of the World is Too Much
Some weeks, the weight of the world makes the usual “3 tips for better 1:1s” feel incredibly small, doesn’t it?
I’ve been struggling this week with what to write about in this newsletter. I have several drafts started, but none of them seem to meet the heavy moment that many of us are finding ourselves in right now. When I look at the brokenness in our communities and world, I often wonder how the work we do actually helps to alleviate such a depth of suffering.
So, I’ve been reading a lot of poetry by Ted Loder in his collection Guerrillas of Grace. This week, the poem that I keep reading over and over again is Sometimes It Just Seems to Be Too Much. I hope that it speaks to your soul and helps you as it has helped me.
Sometimes, Lord, It just seems to be too much: too much violence, too much fear; too much of demands and problems; too much of broken dreams and broken lives; too much of war and slums and dying; too much of greed and squishy fatness and the sounds of people devouring each other and the earth; too much of stale routines and quarrels, unpaid bills and dead ends; too much of words lobbed in to explode and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls; too much of turned-away backs and yellow silence, red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth. Sometimes the very air seems scorched by threats and rejection and decay until there is nothing but to inhale pain and exhale confusion. Too much of darkness, Lord, too much of cruelty and selfishness and indifference… Too much, Lord, too much, too bloody, bruising, brain-washing much. Or is it too little, too little of compassion, too little of courage, of daring, of persistence, of sacrifice; too little of music and laughter and celebration? O God, make of me some nourishment for these starved times, Some food for my brothers and sisters who are hungry for gladness and hope, that, being bread for them, I may also be fed and be full.
Reflect On It
When there is “too much” violence and “too little” persistence, the weight can feel paralyzing. What is one tiny, daring act of compassion you can offer someone else today as a first step towards lightening the weight pressing on you?