This is a piece our friend Cari Dougan wrote. Cari is a kindred spirit and though we have only actually met once in this life our hearts continue to intersect and we have been long time fans of her words as a creative.
“THE GIFT”
“maybe, if you’re like me, this year has made you weary. you feel heavy laden, burdened & weighted by the heaviness of the world. the season. the polarized climate. sickness, isolation, the list goes on & on & on.
so much online, offline. lots of hate & lots to be angry about. so much entertainment that’s it’s coming out of our ears. is it entertainment, when it suddenly becomes necessity?
I knew there would come a time when the stark reality of Jesus’ abundance would grow thicker and increasingly different/foreign from the ways of the world. although intertwined in hope and perseverance, i knew there would come a time where i’d only be able to say that Jesus is the reason i’m alive. the reason of my strength & my hope.
Jesus says,
““come to me, all who are weary & heavy laden.
i will give you rest””
he asks us in the next verses to learn from him
““i am gentle and humble of heart. you will find rest for your soul. my yoke is easy, my burden is light.””
is it getting hard to carry? is the weight of the world something you simply cannot bear because you weren’t ever meant to?
i love that these verses are about trading loads in a sense. you are heavy ladened, burdened by it all. take my yoke & learn from my ways. my yoke is easy, my burden is light.
when the burden we take is now peace in our souls. when the burden still grieves actively, like a sympathetic heart break, each day, and with each new wind & for each new face. but the burden now lets us breathe. knows that it’s not ours to take. knows that we can love and be here and hope here & cry here. the yoke is light because the burden is shared. because God grieves. right now God grieves.
and the turbulence & hardship & gut swelling shame, the loss of light, the loss of who we are, the times it hurts to laugh, and it feels easy, so easy to cry. somehow, God gifts us beautiful and soft things in the midst of the rawness. like when waves sparkle in sunlight, how they only grow in beaming white when the tide is turbulent. how it reflects something more. somehow, i’m not sure how, probably the greatest mystery of my life- all things become new. and old things we lost, we find as we get older. treasured & fresh & brimming with nostalgia, melancholy.
trusting in jesus, it isn’t some magic thing. it requires us to glean from his ways. and one of his ways is patience in what the creator is spinning inside. knowing the inherent goodness, how it feels like a sob in the throat.
how its rest .. can set us free,
to experience this world, with a burden, as a gift within.
mary oliver once said “someone i loved once gave me a box full of darkness. it took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
the gift is that God doesn’t take us out of human experience or cheapens our freedom for the sake of perfection and control.
but gives us hope within. sets us free, because love must be free
hopes song is creaky & familiar.
- nature knows it well. whispering through leaves and laced spider webs, cobble stones, rivers & justice, fresh snow & new moon.
& if you find it swelling strong within you, this year & last year. though it sounds quite like grief, can’t you hear us singing together?”
If you enjoyed Cari’s writing go check out her beautiful book of poetry called ‘House of Hymns: A Collection of Poetry.” Give some love to those local artists. You can also follow her on instagram at @thecaricole to hear more of her words.