Sermon VI: The Defiant Joy

Tenet I says: the rock is yours. You didn't choose it. You can't put it down.

But here's what Tenet I doesn't say: every rock is yours. And right now, there's a good chance you're carrying three or four rocks, and at least one of them belongs to someone else.

Someone else's anxiety that you absorbed because you love them. A parent's unfulfilled dream that they planted in you before you were old enough to choose. A partner's emotional regulation that you've been doing for them because it's easier than watching them struggle. A friend's crisis that has quietly become your crisis because you don't know how to say "I can't carry this for you right now."

These are borrowed rocks. They're real and they're heavy, but they are not yours. The Stoics were blunt about this: other people's emotions, reactions, and choices are not within your control. Trying to carry them is not love — it's a misunderstanding of where you end and they begin.

You know you should put it down. You've known for a while. But it feels selfish. It feels like abandonment. If you stop carrying their weight, who will?

They will. Or they won't. That's their Sisyphean journey, not yours. And the Assembly is not in the business of telling you that other people's rocks don't matter — they do. But you cannot push two boulders up a hill at the same time. You'll collapse on the slope and then neither rock moves.

Name the rocks. All of them. Write them down if it helps. Then honestly ask of each one: "Is this mine?" Not "do I care about it?" — of course you care. But caring about someone's rock and carrying it for them are different things. You can care from the bottom of the hill while they push their own.

For each rock that isn't yours, practice this sentence: "I love you. This is yours. I'll be here when you come back down."

Then pick up your actual rock — the one with your name on it, the one you've been neglecting while you carried everyone else's — and push.

Your rock is enough. You are not required to carry the mountain.