Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
- Matthew 11:29-30
At the hinge of this year, as I rest from the burdens of life and work, I am pondering oxen.
Each Advent, as I re-read Thomas Hardy’s poem, “The Oxen,” I am drawn close to the warmth of wise storytellers around the hearth. The poem recalls an English legend of the Nativity in which farm animals rest in their straw-filled pens and humbly kneel in homage to the Christ child on Christmas Day. Now a grown up, the poem’s narrator decides to leave the cozy fireside and the elderly bards. Taking me along, he steps out into the cold of a dark winter’s night to visit the barn. He tells me that he wants to learn if this story from childhood is true and says that, despite his doubts, he is “hoping it might be so.” Hoping to see the kneeling beasts. Hoping to witness the holy mystery. Hoping, along with me, that this vision of the peaceable kingdom, believed in innocence, might restore us, in our adult worldliness, to that childlike innocence again.
When I imagine oxen resting and enkindle this hope, with the poet, to witness them kneeling, I also cannot help but envision the creatures hard at work: two large, muscular beasts yoked together to labor in tandem. After all, this is what oxen do most days. The one on the left is the lead ox, the more experienced ox with whom the farmer communicates through voice and stick, which is the language of farmers. The other, on the right hand side, and furthest from the farmer, is the off ox, the brawn, who pulls where the lead ox tells it to go using the language of oxen. Double-yoked, they will plow your field or pull your hay wagon, steady as she goes.
Why do these images -- of oxen resting and kneeling under shelter, of oxen working together in an open field -- swirl together in my mind as each year pivots to the next? A short piece, which I recently read during my morning contemplation, sheds some light on this annual fascination. In her reflection on the Gospel of Matthew, Sr. Melannie Svoboda relates a story about a Chilean catechist who asked a rural group to share their favorite images of God. One farmer told the group that “God is the other oxen.” Immediately, I conjured a picture of God as the lead ox and the farmer as the off ox -- or perhaps it is the other way around? The farmer continues, “We talk to each other every day as we plow the field.” For the farmer, who understands himself to be double-yoked to the divine, whether leading or following, God’s presence eases the burden of life and work. Prayer is the yoke that helps to lighten the load.
I now find myself contemplating Hardy’s image of humble animals kneeling in a barn on Christmas and the Chilean farmer’s image of sharing the burden of our labor through the double yoke of God. I find myself longing for a return to innocence, turning my heart toward prayer as we turn toward the new year. I find myself hoping all of it, the promise of the new, the simple, the quiet, the beautiful, might be so.
Shan Overton lives and writes in Nashville. She currently serves as Associate Dean of Academics and Associate Professor of Practical Theology at American Baptist College, a liberal arts HBCU dedicated to social justice, equity, advocacy, and leadership.