Today’s Prayer to Passage will be from the book ‘Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe’ by Andrew Boyd.

Today I pray, “Dear God, My Relationship with You is a happy one. And it is something that cannot be replaced or replicated. I fight the good fight in prayer, and the universal periphery reveals relationships with everyone and everything else. Ours is a Relationship that holds Divine status. Ours is a Relationship of significant, long-lasting meaning. Thank You for being my Center. Amen.”

Following my prayer, I held the closed book in my hands and opened it to this passage:

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
—ANDREW BOYD

This is why we are here. Sometimes we know this. Other times, we feel the crushing impressions of the universe, as they can be a heaviest capacity. When we turned to life on earth, we turned to carrying the universe. I know the burden does not always win in its ultimate appeal. Yet carrying makes us who we are. Better for having held it. Bolder for having known the worth of the weight.