Carrying Life's Load Together
Yesterday in Glasgow, after a meeting with friends, my wife and I slipped into a small noodle bar as the city hummed around us. Yet inside was its own quiet world, steam rising, the aroma of spices, the rhythm of plastic forks scraping against bowls. At the next table sat a young woman from Indonesia. We felt a deep urge to connect. Cheerful and unguarded in conversation, we turned our attention to her and exchanged smiles and brief conversations, the kind that bridge strangers for a moment.
Later that evening, during our prayers, her face revisited us and we asked God to bless her in her life’s journey. Encounters like this are never accidental, I feel; they are threads in the vast tapestry of the world family. And often, after meeting someone from another land, I find myself drawn into their culture, seeking what wisdom it carries, what unique words it has coined to describe the human condition.
That is how I discovered gotong royong.
Literally, it means carrying together. But its true meaning runs deeper: a spirit of communal cooperation where everyone lends a hand without thought of reward. Similar to the Filipino word, bayanihan, it is were neighbours gather to build a house, harvest crops, repair a bridge, or sweep the village square. It is more than teamwork; it is cultural glue; the way life was meant to be.
I find the phrase profoundly moving. In a world often splintered by individualism and self-interest, here is a word that insists on togetherness. It reminds me of the writer’s task, to gather fragments of human experience and carry them together into meaning. It also echoes the words of Scripture: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).
I think of my own culture in Scotland, where once neighbours crowded into each other’s homes, bringing soup to the sick or helping mend a roof. Much of that has thinned under the weight of modern life. Yet gotong royong suggests that such a spirit can be kept alive, even renewed.
The Indonesian word does not point merely to survival, but to dignity. It says that we belong to one another, that life is richest when carried together. Perhaps that young woman we met embodies some of that spirit, friendly, open, quietly carrying the warmth of her homeland even at a table in Glasgow.
We walked away from our brief meeting reminded that the human family is not bound by borders. It is carried, piece by piece, through words like gotong royong, through acts of kindness, through the stranger who smiles across the table.
And perhaps one day, when the burdens of this world feel too heavy, it will not be wealth or power that saves us, but this simple truth: we were made to carry together.
Image by Copilot