Daniel Rose

“Beauty is the soul’s birthright.” - Bernard of Clairvaux

There is something that Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)”

Have you ever thought about it?

No, I mean, deeply thought about it. Have you ever meditated on that statement? Jesus simply declares it to be true. He doesn’t make any qualifications. There are no “ifs,” “ands,” or “buts,” about it. Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light.

This offer is not extended to the super spiritual. This is not for the people who have quiet times every day or are “saints” in their own right.

This offer is for anyone who is “weary and burdened.”

Is that you?

I know that I often feel weary and burdened. We carry so much in our hearts, minds, and souls. Many of us are overwhelmed by what we see in the news and on social media.

As we exist in our world there is a constant barrage of pain, heartbreak, violence, fear, and sadness. There are moments of joy and happiness, but those don’t sell.

Everywhere we come face to face with some great global catastrophe. Everything is evil. Everything is awful. There is no hope.

The reality though is that there is hope. There is good news. There is a way of seeing the world with new eyes and new hearts and new minds. We can experience one another as “one another” and not “the other.”

We can see know this world through what those of us who seek to follow the Christ call “the gospel.”

This gospel, this good news, is an invitation to love, grace, mercy, and beauty. It demands that we change and turn from anger, hatred, strife, and sin. This is not about recognizing guilt within us. We know that feeling all too well. It is about acknowledging the rage, the anger, the hatred, that exists in us and our desire to put those away and embrace the way of love, grace, mercy, and relationship.

As we embrace the “burden” of Jesus we find that we begin to see people and the reality of existence differently. There is no more “us vs them” but only “one another.” There is no more “secular or sacred,” but all becomes sacred.

The desire to escape from our reality is replaced with a deep knowledge that we can transform our current reality and be people who usher in a new way of living, a transcendent way of living.

This knowing comes only from being united with Jesus.

He has opened the way, the narrow way of love, will we walk that path or will we walk the wide path, the way of non-love?

Beauty is what we have been created for. The divine image exists in each of us. Will you see in it in yourself? Will you be witness to it in one another?