The Carrying of the Cross

A meditation

Everything is pressing in. Faces — dozens of them, twisted, shouting, laughing, leering — packed so tight there is no sky left, only a strip of it at the top with a ladder against it. Helmets, hoods, spears. A man in red with his mouth open. Someone jeering at a thief in the corner. It is loud, and it is ugly, and it is all around you.

Find him. He is in the middle, in blue, bent under the weight of the beam, and he is the only quiet thing in the picture. His face is turned toward you. He is not shouting back. He is not even looking at the crowd. He is looking at you.

Behind him, in rose, someone has put a shoulder under the wood — Simon, pulled out of the crowd and made to help, and helping. And down in the corner, a thief kneels to a friar with a book, confessing at the last minute. Even here, in all this, people are being saved.

This is patience. Not waiting quietly in an empty room — that is easy. Patience is this: the crowd at your back, the weight on your shoulder, the road going uphill, and not putting the cross down. Not answering the faces. Keeping on.

Look at the faces once more, and then at his. He carried it through all of that, and his eyes never left you. Whatever you are carrying through whatever crowd, he has been in it, one step ahead.