Lay down your weary tune

By terryhershey | March 5th, 2010

No, I haven’t posted this week.
Yes, I said I was going to post “almost” daily.
No, once a week is not almost daily.
It’s not that I didn’t have anything to say.
It’s just that, well, I didn’t have anything to say.
Which is not exactly true. I was tired.
Sometimes life stretches us and we are, quite literally, depleted. Not necessarily from busyness or occupation of time (although that doesn’t help), but from the way we give great value (weight or honor) to fear or anxiety.

Here’s the deal: I hate it when I get so stretched. I feel weak (or is it needy?). And I don’t like being needy.

When Jesus observed, “Consider the lily. It neither toils nor spins,” I don’t think he meant that there was no work or creation or energy. I think that toil is about all the activity or commotion or bustle or buzz or distraction–that we sustain, and which, in the end, keeps up disconnected from ourselves and from the day.

In The Power of Pause I wrote about a traveler who carried a sack.
What’s in your sack? the traveler, stooped from the heaviness, is asked.
My Mother.
Isn’t she heavy?
She sure is.
Why don’t you put her down?
I can’t.
Well, why can’t you stop carrying her?
I don’t know. I’ve always carried her.

 I know this: I, too, carry a sack, and am reluctant to set it down.
Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
Lay down the song you strum,
And rest yourself ‘neath the strength of strings
No voice can hope to hum. Bob Dylan
What is in the sack is not the primary issue.

Our sacks can carry a whole lot of things.
The anxiety of the day,
past grievances,
woundedness,
an unfair life,
a preoccupation with busyness,
our desire for perfection,
self-righteousness,
our need to impress
or fear (anxiety) about impending events.

Whatever it is, we find reassurance in the weight. Whatever it is, every single one prevents us from accepting life as a gift today.


I meant to consider the lilies, but we’re a few months away. . .so I considered the daffodils instead. And listened to Mary Black sing Dylan’s “Lay Down Your Weary Tune.” It is medicine for the soul. I can’t honestly say that I put my sack “all the way” down. But I’m close.

If you are dealing with fears and insecurities from old head programs, have compassion for yourself. Just love your insecurities, fears and resentments. Release and forgive them as they come up. Judging, beating or repressing insecurities just gives them power. Then you have a pattern that never gets resolved. Recognize that your real security is built from your relationship with your own heart. Sara Paddison, The Hidden Power of the Heart
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do less. live more.