Burdens

"Now I don't know but I been told
it's hard to run with the weight of gold
Other hand I heard it said
it's just as hard with the weight of lead"

from "New Speedway Boogie," The Grateful Dead


I'm always saying that lessons come at the oddest times from the most mundane things. I say it and think it so often that sometimes I wonder if it's really true or I've just convinced Myself of it and can no longer differentiate lessons from well, random stuff.

Then something happens like what happened tonight. I was driving home and the voices on the radio were hurting My ears in that odd, hard to put words to way that sometimes happens. So I switched to the CD.

Song lyrics stick in Me, or wash over Me, or take Me back to somewhere, or shove Me forward, or, like tonight, just give Me a perfect little jewel of a lesson. I just have to be in the right place at the right time.

And tonight was apparently that right place right time . . . traffic came to a stop at just the right time, and those lyrics above could really seep inside Me.

So what's the wonderful perfect lesson?

More of a reminder than a lesson, really: Burdens are burdens. They all entrap and enervate us, despite how beautiful they might seem on the surface. It's folly to carry them around with us. Likewise, the ugly packages are no more worth lugging around, either. The beautiful ones make us feel important and proud when we carry them; the ugly ones make us feel noble and strong. Both are illusions. Let go.

Let go.