Contemplatio of "The Burden"

There is a book by author Greg Tate titled "Everything but the burden: What White people are taking from Black culture."  I find that title so intriguing because I have found myself thinking a lot about "The Burden" lately and how it has impacted my spiritual life. Tate's book is not actually about The Burden but it's title implies that there is one. It is hard to describe what The Burden is but the effects of The Burden have been given names like "Internalized Racism," "Self hate," "Black on Black crime."  I think that The Burden is responsible for race-related health disparity- higher incidences of certain diseases among people of color in the United States as compared to Whites, even when education and income are taken into account. I think that The Burden is the reason for  bleaching creams and hair relaxers and extensions. The Burden is the reason that in 1950 and in 2006 young African American girls label a Black doll as "bad" and the White doll as "good."

I also think that Burden plays a role in why so many African Americans are overweight and obese.  Perhaps that is why the second Beatitude speaks to me in such a deep way. This is the Beatitude for people with burdens.

Textual Notes from Neil Douglas-Klotz

The second Beatitude was translated, "Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted"  Lawile can mean mourners (as translated from the Greek), but in Aramaic it also carries the sense of those who long deeply for something to occur, those troubled or in emotional turmoil or those who are weak and in want from such longing. Nethayun can mean "comforted" but also connotes being returned form wandering, united inside by love, feeling an inner continuity or seeing the arrivel of (literally, the face of) what one longs for.

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New Habit Review
For the Body
     4*2=8 (four meals, two snacks, at least 8 glasses of water every day)
     Exercise Regimen
     Recording progress at the 50 Million Pound Website
For the Mind and Emotions
     Nightly Appreciation,
     Morning Pages- Writing down of First Thoughts
     Vision Page
     Commitment Statement
For the Spirit 
     Lectio Divina of the Beatitudes

Contemplatio
What deeper meaning did you get of this Beatitude from your own practice of the Lectio Divina