Friday, August 5, 2022

Lifting burdens; lightening loads

It's August. Wow. This post finds me on the beautiful Oregon coast. I am enjoying a rare vacation with my family. The beauty of this place almost overwhelms me.



I awoke this morning with this on my mind as a full-formed sentence: Being a Christian is not about toeing some imaginary line. It's about realizing that you are loved and, in light of that reality, to love in like manner.

Like all genuine spiritual truths, this is simple to grasp and hard to actually live. I can call these "spiritual truths" because they don't originate with me.

I was struck by this, taken from the reading for Morning Prayer Week II of Psalter:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, he who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh, abolishing the law with its commandments and legal claims, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile both with God, in one body, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it (Ephesians 2:13-16)
It strikes me as a very human thing to place burdens on others. Jesus speaks often about people who lay heavy burdens on others and do nothing to lighten their load.

Not big thoughts but big enough for this vacation Friday.

Because it's summer. Because I am on vacation. Because I love the Go-Go's. Our traditio today is "Vacation." Yeah, I know it's a song about being on vacation away from your crush or whatever. But, hey, I like it.

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