Verse of the Day for March 1

There is a way of carrying something heavy badly, and anyone who has ever moved a wardrobe knows it. The weight is not what breaks your back. The angle is.

The invitation is to people who labour and are heavy laden, which is a specific description. Not people in crisis. People carrying something ordinary for a long time.

And what he offers is not the removal of the load. He offers a yoke, which is a piece of farm equipment for pulling. He is proposing that you keep working.

But a yoke is built for two animals, and the whole craft of making one is distributing weight so the beam sits where the shoulders can take it. A badly made yoke will destroy an ox carrying a light load. A well made one lets it pull all day.

He says his is easy, and the word means well fitted. Not light. Fitted.

Most of what exhausts us is not the size of the thing. It is carrying it at an angle we were never built for, alone, at a pace nobody set for us.

The offer is a better harness and company in it.