Lifted

“Some sounds are made only when many people finally agree to be undone in the same room.

Voices rise in unison. Faces are illuminated by a light that seems to come from within as much as without. This is gospel. This is the sound of a room agreeing that individual pain can become shared praise.

We live inside cultures that ask us to bear things privately. But there is a particular grace that only appears when suffering is finally allowed to be sung, together, out loud. Every hymn in this tradition began as one person’s unbearable Tuesday.

This photograph isn’t about religion.

It’s about what happens when we stop bearing our lives alone.

Where in your life have you been carrying something silently that could — with the right people — finally be sung?”