Bearing Others' Burdens

In a conversation with my neighbor Jamie I confessed an unholy reaction I had a day or two ago when I read a Facebook prayer request from a stranger in western Oregon. The post asked people to pray for sunshine and warm, dry weather. My reaction: Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to begin to think of praying for that? We're sweltering here in an overabundance of sunshine and warm, dry weather. To pray for more of it seems absurd.

Jamie knew exactly what I meant. He told me a closer-to-home story about a phone conversation he and his wife had with their son Jesse who lives in northeastern Kansas. On his days off Jesse does lawn mowing and other yard work, except that when it rains, he can't do those things. He summed up his feelings about this by saying, "I'm so tired of all this rain."

"Jesse, don't even think of saying such a thing," his mother told him, the sight of browning vegetation everywhere outside her windows no doubt prompting that reaction. I know exactly what she meant.

I heard another person say today what I have often thought recently, "It's really depressing to drive down the road and see what's happening." It hurts even more when you know the people who own and work the fields along the road. You know these people are already working hard and spending carefully to make their farming venture profitable, and that is not nearly always enough. Most farmers depend on some other income source to survive. How is it that these right ways of living aren't enough? I guess that's how if often is for people in many parts of the world--hard work and careful spending don't insure having enough. This reality can feel overwhelming, as if the whole world's burdens weighed us down.

My own reaction to the desperate Facebook poster from Oregon was probably exactly like the reaction of many people who have heard about our need for rain and cooler weather--when they themselves are wishing for warmer, sunnier, drier weather: Can you imagine how hard it is for me to begin to think of praying for that?

"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ," the Scripture says. I've never before doubted that wisdom, and I don't doubt it now. I do wonder, though, exactly how you go about doing it, especially when your own desperation so completely clogs your feelings and depletes your resources that reaching out to help another feels like one empty hand stretching toward another's empty hand. I'm not quite sure either whether bearing another's burdens has more to do with feeling or doing.

Perhaps there is something to be learned from the "empty hand" imagery. Jamie said, "Not that talking about it really changes anything . . . " when he was explaining to me what he and Hiromi had been discussing.

"Talking about it helps us commiserate," I answered, "and sometimes that helps--knowing we're not the only ones suffering." Maybe the reason that's a good thing is because helpless people in company with other helpless people are forced to look away from themselves for aid available elsewhere. When they look to God, it may even help them see possibilities among their own resources that they've missed before.

After my thoughts had already churned along for some time on the "burden bearing" theme, I read a blog post written by my friend Dorcas, who lives in western Oregon. Hearing about what excessive rain and cloudy weather means for their grass seed business and for farmers in their area helped me put a face on that Facebook information, and I can now commiserate with the Oregon residents' desperation almost as well as my neighbors'. Even before this I remembered that praying for someone else does not first require feeling all that they're feeling when they have a need for help.

For me, the take-away lessons are these: 1) Pray for those who suffer, even if you can't feel what they're feeling. 2) Don't stay isolated when you're suffering. 3) Focus on God when you're suffering. 4) Don't take on the whole world's burdens; ask God to help you see what is within your capability to influence or change, and ask Him to turn your thoughts away from the rest.

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Today I finally had the opportunity to tell my professor friend James that I liked his recent "Western Front" article (the readers write section of our local newspaper). It was a response to an earlier column by a local pastor on climate change.

James said in his article that he thought that even if climate change turned out not to be an ongoing phenomenon caused by human activity, we have nothing to lose by behaving as if it were exactly as some fear it is--that we are on a course creating huge changes in our climate patterns. I agree with him about having nothing to lose by behaving cautiously in environmental matters. James was further distressed by the fact that the original writer is a minister who "doesn't care about people"--in James' words.

I said I thought that the matter of stewardship should help guide our thinking about the environment. "We're caretakers of what God has given us. We need to figure out what that means, and do it." I can't imagine that it means poisoning what's here, knowing that it will harm people. I also commented on the many weather extremes we're witnessing this year, and wondered aloud what significance this has.

"That is a predicted effect of climate change--greater extremes," James said. We also discussed a matter in the local news, of late.

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The Sunflower Electric company is going through the permitting process in preparation for building a power plant in western Kansas that will emit into the atmosphere 12 million tons of particulate matter per year. While some people oppose this on the basis of its climate change potential, I think it's quite enough reason to oppose it because of what those particulates will do to the air we breathe, and to our bodies after we've breathed it. It's a health issue--not only a climate issue. 3.9 billion gallons of water per year will also be used in the process of generating this electricity. The Ogallala Aquifer, which will supply this water, is already being depleted far faster than it's being replenished. This is an issue directly related to sustaining agriculture and human populations in those areas--another good enough reason to oppose Sunflower's plans--beyond what it might mean for the climate.

The power generated by Sunflower will mostly be sent to Colorado, which is ironic, since the coal used to generate the electricity will come from Colorado initially. I say if it's going to be Colorado coal and Colorado power, let's let it also be 3.9 billion gallons of Colorado water and 12 million tons per year of Colorado pollution--a package deal that stays outside of Kansas.

The Sierra Club is vigorously opposing the current plans by filing lawsuits. Under an earlier Democratic state governor, permits for construction were denied. When the governor joined Obama's cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services, her replacement took a more generous stance toward the power company. A permit was granted for construction--strategically at the very end of 2010, which insured that more stringent environmental regulations scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2011 would not apply. I seriously doubt that this was coincidental.

Media research uncovered the fact that, in the public comment period that was ostensibly a government effort to gather input from the public and answer questions, Sunflower actually supplied some information and answers to their liking and the government passed it off as the result of their own investigation. This smells rotten to me.

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Ultimately, what happens with Sunflower, and in Oregon and in Kansas weather is beyond my control. I can pray about these things, and then perhaps God will turn my thoughts elsewhere--back to everyday matters of taking care of what I am responsible for--to matters of stewardship, which I pray may include for all of us--care for everything in our "world" that God cares about.