It is lonely to carry a burden. A burden is always heavy. If you learn how to carry it, you can lessen its weight and awkwardness. It takes time to learn this; you must experience the weight of the burden, and then you discover its secret. At home we had a garden up in the mountains. There was no water in the garden, and the well was quite distant. To keep blight away the potatoes had to be sprayed with bluestone. The water had to be carried in buckets to fill the barrel of spray. If you had only one bucket to carry, it was very awkward. Though two buckets of water were heavier, they were far easier to carry. The burden was heavier but each side balanced the other and could be endured in the long distance over rough ground. Similarly with the burden of suffering. When in patience and prayer we painstakingly manage to discover the point of equilibrium within our burdens, we are able to carry them more easily.
People who do physical labour know the secret of balanced endurance. One summer I worked as part of a construction crew in Connecticut. I was working with Swedish and Norwegian carpenters. My job was to carry long heavy planks of timber over to the new houses and then pull them up on to the roof so that the carpenters had them ready to hand. I will never forget my first day. It was pure slavery. Fifty times I promised myself silently that they would not see me tomorrow. However, by evening, I was beginning to manage the art of carrying huge planks twenty or thirty feet long on my shoulder. Once I learned to judge where the point of equilibrium at the centre of the plank was, I could carry the weight more easily. If you do not learn how to carry it, even a small burden can tread you into the ground. Only by listening to the burden that has come to you will you be able to discover its secret structure. No one else can help you here. This is something that you must find out for yourself. Each burden is different. You alone know what it is like from underneath. While you are suffering, you live each day in the harsh and bruising presence of your burden. You know its inner configuration. No burden is uniform, it is made up of many different strands and materials. If you attend to it, the point of equilibrium will gradually reveal itself.