The Ministry of Bearing

It is Sunday.  I read theology on Sunday.  I love Dietrich Bonhoefer.  I have to read and re-read sentences and ponder but I love his thoughts.   Today I am reading on the "Ministry of Bearing".   I have borne until I have borne out with people.   It's like the old fellow who says, "I don't know why he hates me;   I've never done anything FOR him!"   And do I know something about that--It was brought out again  recently with an omission of respect and kindness.  Wonder who they would have gone to when the rubber hit the road during the last years of embattlement and doling out funds and time and effort!  O yes, most other family members  knew so little about the situation that they were not aware of the sacrifices that some of us were constantly making to be supportive!  But my children, and my closest friends, and my lawyer and my tax people and many others in the circle  knew and tried, in vain, to stop me from "bearing".

I learned in VBS and in my home that Galatians 6:2 says:  "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."  This is the law of Christ and means forbearing and sustaining.  (From his book Life Together, p.100).  It further states:  "The Christian..must bear the burden of a brother.  He must suffer and endure the brother.  It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated....The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment.  It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us."

To bear this burden makes us realistic, involved, accepting and affirming and, maybe, breaking through to the point where we take joy in it.   Sorry, Dietrich, baby, I am not there yet!  Give me some more time and some space to get over the slights,  the lack of respect and appreciation and the feeling that I have been sorely treated for all of my efforts of kindness.   These are heavy burdens, mentally, to me!  It makes me want to say that this latest antic is the last antic of the bearing!  Enough is way too much!

(By the way, Dietrich knew more than I will ever know about "bearing".  He was executed by the Germans because he refused to "bear" some things;  he kept speaking out!)