THE NOBLE BURDEN

Years ago I heard one of my favorite writers, Jon Acuff, at a conference. He spoke about this idea of soundtracks: thoughts/defining ideas that play on repeat in your mind, and ever since I haven't been able to shake the truth of the concept or the power that our soundtracks hold over our lives. The funny thing is though, that we don't always know when we are learning a new soundtrack, and we don't always know just how far that music will take you.

When I was a kid my favorite toy was my Fisher Price Castle and Knights. My parents made sure I had the newest playsets and figurines, but my nerdy soul was always drawn back to the castles, knights, and kings.

That, of course, led to a deep love of all things medieval (Let's hear it for the movies"A Knight's Tale" and "Kingdom of Heaven"), and a weirdly founded belief in honor, nobility, valor… and any other virtue you can probably find plastered on a Facebook group claiming to be fighting for old values and tradition (usually with a picture of some dude who is supposed to look like a Viking with a really bad haircut).

But, the soundtrack stuck. The idea of being noble and sacrificial mingled with my deeply embedded Christian faith, and gave birth to a soundtrack that haunts me to this day.

See, there came a day when I realized I was thinking, feeling, and believing things that didn't align with the worldview my parents, my church, or my teachers agreed with. And by the time I realized what was happening, or who I was, life had gotten way too complicated.

The teenage years hit hard, and everyone had drama. My parent's marriage was on the rocks. And it seemed like everyone in my world was always overwhelmed dealing with their own cluster fucks. So what did I do? Nothing.

I bought this idea that my struggle was my struggle alone and that I was doing everyone a favor by keeping it to myself. It became my noble burden.

The older I've gotten, the more I have realized that so many of us have these. The troubles, anxieties, and cares that we don't share with "our people". Why? Because the world is already a mess, and it doesn't need us adding to it.

We are the strong ones. We are the ones who can deal with our baggage, trauma, and crazy.

Only we don't

There's an old saying, "You're only as sick as your secrets." And those noble burdens become septic faster than we think. But still, we press on with our storyline. Because we aren't sick, we're noble. And the soundtrack we sang, the song that came from a courageous heart, becomes a coward's compromise.

I've bore my noble burden. I've played the coward. I've shared my story with the wrong people, only to find secrets and shame on the other side. And I watched the soundtrack hurt everyone around me, despite my best efforts.

Perhaps it's time to call our "noble burdens" what they are: the coward's compromise. And maybe, just maybe, despite the voices around us telling us not to, it's time to fight those lies in the light of day, rather than in the sick darkness of secrecy.