“Come All Who Carry Heavy Burdens” On Loving Others as Ourselves

Depression is not a sin, but what depression does, no sin can do. (Chassidic saying)

Yet where the danger lies / Grows that which saves. (Friedrich Hölderlin)

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. (The Gospel of Matthew, 25:35)

On the “too muchness” of being human

One Sunday morning, a best friend of mine from out of town came to visit my LGBTQ+ affirming church. She grew up Hindu. I grew up Christian. We both have a heart for helping people, both personally and professionally. My friend wanted to see what I was up to, so she came to check out our church as a good friend would. Our now retired pastor, Ken Wilson, introduced himself to her and asked a few questions, including:

“What do you do?”

She said, “I work in suicide prevention.”

Very naturally, Ken replied, “Oh! That’s what we do here!”

Like a lightbulb, I was struck by this exchange. It was as if my life’s work (in gender studies, foster care, mental health, and in my faith in God) came together in this one moment, in this one quick and easy response: “That’s what we do here!”

For me, suicide prevention is not just caring for others. It’s personal. I’ve been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and have experienced symptoms of both depression and mania. I know what it means to carry a heavy burden — to be preoccupied by the heaviness of depression and with the “too-muchness” of (manic) life. I also know many stories of dear people who have or have thought about suicide.

One story I know of a young mother who attempted suicide. She called her religiously devout friend for help. This friend, who lived right down the street, refused. She said, “This is between you and the devil.” She left her to bleed.

I see this heartbreaking story play out again and again in our society among religious folks. Many Christians are so concerned with society’s moral failings and with their own individual relationship with God, that they neglect and/or harm the very people living in the midst of their lives.

Suicidal ideation is a huge problem especially among LGBTQ+ folks and teenage girls. It’s higher among LGBTQ+ young people than in the general population, and even higher when the family and loved ones are non-affirming (The Trevor Project has good resources). Perhaps through fear and judgment around the mysteries of sexuality and gender, Christian folks have left their children to bleed. They turn their eyes and ears away from those in need.

A recent article in The Week describes “An Epidemic of Anguish: Why depression and despair are soaring among teenage girls” (March 3, 2023). The article notes there has been a huge increase in rapes and suicidal ideation among teenage girls. This has coincided with an increase in social media use, a place that lets them bleed alone. LGBTQ+ folks, teenage girls, those struggling with mental illness, along with so many others, are all being lost in a world that has eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear.

But, 1 John 4:20 argues: “How can you say you love God who you have not seen, and yet not love your neighbor who you can see?” Love of God IS love of neighbor. Love of God is the love of the stranger and the outcast who lives in your midst. God is the holy “Other” within our midst. God is the holy spark, the mystery that is within our neighbor as in ourselves. When we deny the neighbor, the stranger, the outcast, the Other, we deny the Holy Presence within our midst.

Honest Face-to-Face Communication

In an excellent article from Outreach: An LGBTQ+ Catholic Resource, “How to read the Bible’s “clobber passages” on homosexuality,” Amy-Jill Levine puts the Bible verses used to condemn people into context. More broadly, she provides helpful ways to read difficult texts. In a paragraph on Genesis 6, she explains how the sins of Noah’s time and later of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to do with same-sex relationships, but rather theft and rape. In this paragraph, she includes a passage from 1 Enoch that warns about the “gifts of the ‘fallen angels’”: war, cosmetics, and writing. She writes,

1 Enoch details these ‘fallen’ angels, including their teaching humankind the arts of war, of cosmetics, and of writing — activities that prevent honest face-to-face communication.

This struck me. I sometimes wonder if our religious “idols”/ideals, social media, and our budding relationship with A.I. (artificial intelligence) can be similarly seen as a “gift of the gods” (or of “fallen angels”) that runs the risk of preventing honest face-to-face communication.

For people struggling with life, honest face-to-face communication can sometimes feel unbearable. There is a “too muchness” in human life — within ourselves and in others. I know there have been times for me when encounters with all those “happy, healthy” people runs the risk of exposing an unbearable Otherness that is within me. And yet, when I withdraw from life into my (unconscious) desires, fears, and fantasies, I indulge in preoccupations that further prevent honest face-to-face communication with the people around me. These preoccupations are often defenses against the status quo of an unbearable life — and yet, ironically, these defenses also preserve the status quo and prevent true change and transformational living.

“Yet where the danger lies / Grows that which saves.” (Hölderlin)

Eric Santner, in his wonderful book, On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, shows how our preoccupations (what he calls the paralysis of truly living, or “undeadness”) prevent us from living fully in the midst of life. And yet, incredibly, when we encounter the fantasies, preoccupations, fears, hopes, and longings of the people around us through honest face-to-face communication the source of our angst can be transformed into a source of connection. This is Creation, Revelation, and Redemption. This is a powerful disruption of the status quo!

Here we begin to truly live in the midst of life, through love for others as ourselves. “Welcome the stranger into your home!” In this way, we are given life, abundant life, more life. We are freed from our burdens and free to live more abundantly when we love our neighbor as ourselves and carry each other’s burdens. This is also what it means to love God.

For those of us who struggle, we might wonder, “Why, Oh God, did you make me this way?” I believe that the Apostle Paul received an answer to this question:

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Jesus emphasized honest face-to-face communication and always had time to stop and help the stranger. He said “Wherever two or three of you are gathered…there am I in your midst.” (Matthew 18:2). Honest face-to-face communication and love of the stranger is a key ingredient to loving God and finding the joy of living in the midst of the life we’ve each been given.

The holiday, the holy day, the day of rest, the moment of relief, comes when we lay down our burden, our need for perfection, our fantasies, and our fears, and turn instead to ease the burden, the perfectionism, the fantasies and the fears of the people around us. This day-of-rest happens through lived moments, encounters with love of God as love of neighbor, so that we can live more fully in the midst of life. For today is the day the Lord has made. As Jesus said,

Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11: 28–30)

This is Torah. This is the gift from heaven. This is not too difficult or too much for us to fulfill.