You Have Been Blessed With a Burden

While watching the movie “Freedom Writers” the other day, I heard an interesting comment made during it that made me hang my head and smile. For I felt all too well the weight of those words in my life. They were this: “You have been blessed with a burden.”

Several months ago, someone close to me commented that I have “soft skills” because I am a writer. It was stated factually, not as in insult. Nonetheless, the words stuck. Unlike the highly schooled and respected skills of engineers, doctors, scientists, firemen, and other such professions, writers have “soft skills”. And supposedly my skills require less education, less intelligence, and less effort. They are less desirable in society, less respected, less sought after, and significantly less compensated. Supposedly.

Years ago, this person’s comments about my “soft skills” would’ve burn my ego like hell. They would’ve made me feel insignificant and worthless. I would’ve felt guilty about the money my parent’s invested in my writing degree. Years ago, I would’ve let this person opinion, or rather the majority of society’s opinion, of the work I do bring me to my knees. But that was before I was put through some of the hardest tests of my life and shown just how crucial and un-soft my skills as a writer truly are.

Writers are among that rugged but beautiful genre of humanity known as artists. Alongside them are dancers, musicians, sculptors, painters, and countless others. Some of them are educated—others self taught. Some live in mansions—others in boxes on the street. But all of them, all of us, live and die by our art. It is who we are. It is our most inherent quality. And it cannot be remove—even on the days when we plead with God to remove it.

We aren’t doctors. But we save lives every single day. That song you hear on the radio after a devastating break up—that one that calms your restless heart for a moment—that song was written and performed by an artist. Those words read aloud in churches all across the globe each Sunday morning—those words were scribed by writers brave enough to share their beliefs and spread the word of Christ. The words of the Bible save countless souls each day.

We aren’t civil engineers, but we build masterpieces that take people’s breath away. Every year, millions of tourists travel to the Louvre Museum in Paris to witness in person the creations of da Vinci and Michelangelo or to the Sistine Chapel to see the depiction of the Last Supper. They travel to Florence to see the statue of David.  

We aren’t scientists but we make discoveries and bring new ideas into the world. Shakespeare taught us of the exquisite depth and devastation of true love. Thoreau showed us that living simply and within our natural surroundings may very well bring us the greatest inner peace and happiness. Martha Graham dared to bring new and more modern steps into the dance world. 

We aren’t daredevils, but we do the impossible each day. Beethoven was deaf throughout most of his composing career, yet wrote music so beautiful it made people cry. Picasso broke every rule of art during his day with his cubist paintings and never sold a painting during his lifetime. Yet today his paintings sell for well over 100 million dollars.

We don’t run into burning buildings to save anyone, but we do put our very hearts and souls on the line for our art. We work for little money—sometimes for free. We spend our lives being judged, misunderstood, and ridiculed. We shoulder the relentless burden of rejection. Our lives are often plagued by solitude and loneliness. And yet, despite all of this, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

My greatest moment of revelation as a writer came nearly two years ago when a friend asked me to help him write a memorial speech to read at his sister’s funeral that had passed away from Leukemia. I was overwhelmed with both grief and joy at the request. It was the greatest blessing and burden I have ever been bestowed with. But I bore it all with the compassion and dignity and grace that all artists are called to bear.

Artists, of any type, may be bestowed with soft skills. But they aren’t soft people at all. We have one of the hardest jobs on earth. We are responsible for holding people and life itself together with one note, one word, one step, one brush stroke, one dent in a mound of clay. We dare to say the things the rest of the world is too afraid to say. We put things on the stage, in the frame, on the page, that others simply do not know how to. In moments, both personal and historical, when others flounder, we are the ones people look to for inspiration and comfort. To make something disastrous appear beautiful once more. To make sense of what seems so much against God’s plan. To bring light into the darkness of our world.

Being asked to compose a eulogy for a grieving friend is not a request many could answer. For me it was never a request. It was simply part of my calling from God as a writer. Being a writer is no easy job. It requires sacrificing parts of your soul each day in order to put words on a page that will change lives, inspire lives, preserve lives. It is a burden. But it is a burden God blessed me with and one that I bear with all the willingness that Christ bore the cross.