“Perhaps our too-heavy burdens have made us lose what faith we once had in a Power greater than ourselves.” (ODAT, 12 April)
Either I’m not built to carry more than the moment, or I’ve burned out the circuits of carrying more than the moment through overburdening.
The burden is not the circumstance without; it is the adoption of responsibility for that circumstance.
All responsibilities can be discharged as agent not principal.
God thus bears the weight of the ultimate responsibility—I have only delegated responsibility.
The other sense of burden originates in the stream of feelings that arise in response to the events that are occurring in real time.
To be present is to be in a constant state of exposure to things over which one has no control.
Even if one is governing the facts and the circumstances of one’s immediate experience, the feelings that arise in response to those facts and circumstances are not directly under one’s control.
They are an endless stream of impositions, of impertinences, of importunities, of intrusions.
The burden arises from trying to halt, funnel, channel, deflect, ignore, or deny this stream.
Once the stream—and everything it contains—is accepted, there is no further burden.