7 - 20 - 17 My Yoke is "Easy"

The Gospel reading for today is Matthew 11:28-30 Link to Daily Readings

“Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

This sounds nice, but as soon as one starts to look into Jesus’s teachings it becomes quite clear that he does not mean the kind of rest we were envisioning. He compels us to a very strict morality and tireless labor for the good of others and the Kingdom.

I think the kind of rest he means is almost unfamiliar to us, but we catch glimpses of it. It is not the rest of spending a day on the couch watching a tv marathon, doing absolutely nothing. For in that same passage Jesus says “my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” He makes no promises to free us from our work. Our rest will be from the work that drains us, that defeats who we are as humans. He will give us the work that strengthens, the work that pleases as it demands.

I’d have to believe it’s not too uncommon of a feeling as I’ve had it before. But I think it is that peculiar feeling one gets when doing very hard, but very enjoyable, work such as hoeing a garden or chopping logs with a friend. That feeling of wholeheartedness in one’s activity combined with fellowship. The image that comes to my mind is a bunch of people all strapped to weight sleds (as one would use in athletic training) trudging forward towards a common goal, if not with hands clasped together, with words of encouragement flowing around.

I think physical work is used as a metaphor beyond the fact of its prevalence in Jesus’s time. I think it is a very plain way to understand work, improvement, and strength. We see ourselves grow stronger in our bodies as we put ourselves to work, just as we will grow stronger in Christ if we persist in His teachings.

I finished Miracles yesterday, read The Great Divorce, and now I am starting on The Problem of Pain today. I hope that these will be fruitful for me, but I find them very pleasurable to read for their own sake. Reading about such high and important things seems to lessen the threats in life. Even if thirty minutes of my workout today leaves me breathless and witless, so what? Thinking of eternity helps to broaden my sense of time beyond the moment’s suffering or the week’s inconvenience. Thinking of what is most important serves to broaden my sense of purpose beyond my daily calendar.

I thought I would experience more anxiety as I got closer to being ready to release my album but I feel fine right now. Perhaps that is because I’m still adding material in an effort to get to a better length. Maybe that’s just me stalling. Maybe I don’t actually have any artistic reason for waiting to get to forty minutes for an album rather than thirty. Maybe I’m just scared. Ten songs does seem kind of short to me. And I passed the threshold of a mixtape when I added the eighth song so it’s sort of in a strange in-between place right now. 

I think I’ve decided that football, well sports in general, just aren’t important enough to me to invest 20 hours a week with little hope of any return. I don’t doubt that some weeks in rugby this fall I’ll hit 20 hours once my own personal lifting as well as travel is added in, but all of that will be enjoyable. It will not be a matter of discipline and boredom as four hour practices where I get two reps are.

Obviously I can’t be certain of how I’ll handle the criticism yet but I don’t think it will affect me very much. Realistically, there will probably be less open criticism than I would expect, but probably more mockery behind my back than I’d care to think about. Oh well. The people who will judge me and care so deeply about that kind of thing are not people whose opinions I value highly anyhow. It is, after all, football.