The Shoulders of a Seminarian

In the days that have passed since my most recent visit home to the foothills of the Blue Ridge, I've been thinking a great deal about the inestimable value of the human shoulder. I'm not normally given to pondering the mysteries of the human body, but a profoundly emotional moment at the altar rail during the Eucharist pushed musings on shoulders to the fore.

At an altar I have visited countless times in my life, I knelt to receive the bread and wine - and almost immediately I was overcome by emotion, to the point that I cried. Yes, part of it was the feeling of being back in a place that means so much to me, one that was a root from which grew the person that I am today. More than that, though, it was the feeling I got while kneeling at the rail - the sensation that the hands of those I knew in that church, men and women whose friendship and support sustains me today as well as those who have long since passed on and are now the subject of wonderful memories, were all placed on me. All at once, in that moment, they each laid their hands on my shoulders, silent, unheard prayers of blessing and encouragement from those who were and continue to be guides and companions, at moments great and small, in my journey to the seminary.

Shoulders are of great significance in both the Old and New Testaments. They were used to carry water jars in Genesis 2 and sheep in Luke 15. They have borne the burden of man's laws in Matthew 23 and the weight of Assyrian oppression in Isaiah 14. And they carried the weight of messianic power and responsibility as prophesied in Isaiah 9. Throughout history, we have put our shoulders to the wheel; Isaac Newton said that success in his life was only the result of "standing on the shoulders of giants;" W.H. Auden said that "every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders."

In the months since beginning my first year at seminary, I have seen the true power and significance of shoulders in my friends and classmates. They have been a place for them lay their heads at stressful moments. They have been the landing point for many tears of frustration and anxiety. They have been a support for those recovering from brief moments of physically frailty and pain. More than anything else, however, they have been a place to receive arms thrown around them in joy and celebration as we have each shared in the many wonderfully profound and Spirit-filled moments experienced each day.

Our natural inclination is to view shoulders as necessary for carrying weight or bearing burdens. For me, that is a glass half-empty; shoulders carry so much more. They carry the love of friends and family; they carry the hopes of our church; they carry the dreams for our future. And as I learned first-hand at the altar in that small, beloved country church, a hand on a shoulder is a sign of blessing from all those whom God has chosen to weave into the thread of our lives.