Beagles and Burdens

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

Beagles are the traveling salesmen of the canine community. Another one showed up at our porch this morning, tail wagging, grinning, “Have I got a deal for you!” During hunting season dogs often get separated from their pack and wander into the wilderness looking for a place to light. This is the second one for us this season and I am sure there will be more. He is cute, neutered, well fed and obviously well socialized as evidenced by his joyful leap into bed with me. He and Rufus are cavorting while Barney looks on with patient curiosity. The away room seems too small for all this energy. After breakfast and playtime, perhaps they will settle down and sleep a little. If this one follows the pattern of earlier beagle visitors, he will spend a day or two gathering himself together, then leave quietly searching for home once again.
Sometimes I feel like the beagle... lost, lonely, looking for a place to light. And other times, folks end up on my porch needing some time to knit up their raveled ends. The need to be seen and heard, the desire to share what is weighing you down, the call to listen to others hurt and lost places is what defines church community for me. We are all lost beagles (or sheep) looking for some respite care. Our backgrounds, needs, hurts, journeys, and tolerances are often sharply different but that didn’t matter to the writer of Galatians. The instructions are clear. Carry each other’s burdens... “feed my sheep” said Jesus.
There is no judgement attached to these instructions... feed only those like you... be kind to those who are kind to you...they brought it on themselves, they deserve it... ignorant, poor white trash need not apply... rich people are different from the rest of us... only the words that say “carry each other’s burdens”. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with them politically or theologically. If you are well to do and they are poor, not important. The assumption is that all of us carry burdens, invisible and visible. Our calling as Christians is to share the load, pass the heavy burdens around so that no one sinks under the weight of what they are enduring.
Elie Wiesel says “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately”. Many times I see the desperate need of those who are abused, the poor, the forgotten in this world, those at the bottom of the pile and miss the need of the normal looking young mother sitting next to me in church. Christ’s face and voice comes to me in all the people who cross my path whether they look like they need something or not.
Church community provides the starting place for practicing this calling. And it is not easy... far easier to carry the burdens of those you do not know well than to shoulder the hurts of those you know well and disagree with. Doesn’t matter to Jesus how righteous we are or how right we are or how hard we have worked pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps (one of my least favorite phrases). All he wants is for us to share more than our money and time. We are called to share ourselves, warts and all, and help bear the burdens of those who walk with us. Lord, have mercy... This is so hard for me. I don’t know where to start except to start where I am. I remember an old hymn we used to sing...”Brighten the Corner Where You Are”...It was bouncy and fun, pitched a little too high but still a treat to sing. The words... Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do, do not wait to shed your light afar. To the many duties ever near you now be true, brighten the corner where you are. Just above are clouded skies that you may help to clear, let not you narrow self your way debar, though into one heart alone may fall your song of cheer, brighten the corner where you are. Here for all your talent you may surely find a need, here reflect the Bright and Morning Star. Even though from your humble hand the bread of life may feed, brighten the corner where you are. Brighten the corner where you are...someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar, brighten the corner where you are.”
Today, Dear One, keep my narrow self at bay and help me brighten my small corner by sharing the loads of those who are my kinfolks, known and unknown. Loved and known by you, I must extend the same care to others... beagles and sheep are we all. Amen.