The Gift of Tears

Sunday 3/22/2015 6:35 AM

My whole life I have cried easily. As a child I remember crying when relatives would leave after visiting for a few days. I also remember crying when seeing a dead animal on the road between our farm and town. My mother always said I was a sensitive child. As an adult I can also become very emotional, so much so that I can’t speak without my voice quivering or tears appearing. This has been a source of great frustration with me. I long to be able to discuss issues and have conversations without the emotions welling up within.

There have been a few times in my life when tears overwhelmed me, my body wracked with spasms because of the depth of my emotion. Once was when I was looking over the Colorado River valley. As I looked over the valley I suddenly became aware of the depth of my sin and I turned my face away and wept over my sin. Another time I was traveling alone in my car. I asked God to accompany me and, after driving for four hours singing songs of praise to God, I became aware of his presence with me in the car and I wept for joy, having to pull to the side of the road because I couldn’t see through the tears. A third time was when I looked over the city of Tucson and its surroundings. After shouting, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the people and all who live in it,” at the top of my lungs, while overlooking the city from the top of a hill, I wept uncontrollably as I realized what a mess mankind has made of this wonderful world with which God has gifted us. Another time was after the death of Tyler Verkaik, a two-year old boy, who died after undergoing a bone marrow transplant that was necessary due to an extremely rare disease he suffered, along with his older brother, Ryan. The tragedy of a young life cut short seemed to be unjust. The morning after Emily’s college graduation the goodness of God to me throughout the years overwhelmed me and I wept tears of joy because of God’s constant care for me and for my family over my lifetime. The most recent case of uncontrollable weeping occurred a week ago Friday. After meeting with one of the members of my small group I began praying for those who do not yet know God, specifically for the members of ISIS and other radical Muslims. I am troubled by the reactions of many Christians who want to destroy them by any means necessary and I realized that the only way things are going to change in our world that is filled with violence is if hearts are turned to God and towards forgiveness and reconciliation rather than on vengeance and hatred, which seem only to exacerbate the problem. The seeming hopelessness of that ever occurring overwhelmed me and I wept as I prayed until I could no longer utter any words.

This past week the theme of my devotions has been the gift of tears. I must admit that I have never considered my tears a gift. I see them more as a curse. A few of the readings in my materials have given me a somewhat different perspective on things. In her book, Tears of a Greening Heart, Wendy M. Wright writes, “…the Eastern church writers most often say tears as the outward manifestation of the spiritual experience of penthos, a term we might translate as ‘compunction.’ Compunction literally means ‘to puncture with’ and refers to the spiritual pain due not only to a shocked recognition of sin and human weakness, but the simultaneous awakening dissatisfaction with sin and longing for God.  To have our hearts thus ‘punctured’ is both the beginning and the dynamic of the journey. … Spiritual tears in themselves were variously categorized and described. They could have purifying power. They might function differently for those just beginning on the spiritual journey and for those far along. They could be provoked by memory of sin as well as consideration of the goodness of God, the desire for heaven, the fear of hell, or the thought of judgment. Overwhelmingly, tears were understood as a gracious God-given gift, a wonderful physical sign that the inner world of a person was being transformed.” In his introduction to the book, Weavings, John S. Mogabgab writes, “Tears of grief and tears of joy often mingle together in a single moment of enhanced vision, endowing us with new eyes that discern traces of the God who suffers with us silently in the pure vulnerability and power of divine love. There is comfort in such tears. They bring fresh understanding that God is nearby, sharing to the full our humanity in all its bitterness and blessedness.”

Perhaps I need to change my view of tears, seeing them as a gift from God rather than as a curse with which I was born. Jesus told his disciples that he wanted them to experience life to the full. Since life is filled with both joy and sorrow my tears might just be the way that God allows me to experience the fullness of life. The main thing I need to remember is that God weeps with me, in both the joy and the sorrows of life.

Vulnerability

Saturday 3/14/2015 6:02 AM

Our modern world seems to be governed by fear; at least in my corner of the world this seems to be true. News reports are filled with murders, suicide bombings, kidnappings, threats of nuclear proliferation, unrestrained religious fanatics gruesomely murdering their captives and mercilessly attacking villages, and other such acts of violence. In that kind of a world one feels vulnerable, almost as if one is living on borrowed time. We hunker down and isolate ourselves in our houses, barring the windows and doors to keep the evil from reaching us. Our government creates the Department of Homeland Security to protect us from threats, both foreign and domestic. Everyone is viewed with suspicion even though we are all in the same situation, experiencing the same threats.

Today I read the writing of John Mogabgab in which he writes about vulnerability. “Recently a workshop leader invited participants to voice their associations with the word vulnerability. Responses included adjectives such as meek, intimidated, naïve, inferior, ugly and foolish. Vulnerability is not seen as a gift to be given but a weakness to be overcome. Not vulnerability but security is the ideal that most often governs our national, communal, and personal decisions. Perhaps one of the greatest sources of loneliness in contemporary life is that our vulnerability, which unites us in a common humanity and enables us to be woven together in love, now is cause for our isolation in fear-filled cells of spiritual solitary confinement.”

I would argue that this feeling of isolation is not simply one of spiritual solitary confinement but also of social solitary confinement. Earlier this morning I read an article written by Johann Hari based on his book, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, in which he cites research that suggests that addictions of all sorts are caused, not by chemical hooks that attach to receptors in our brains, but, by the effects of an individual living in isolation from community. When those suffering from addictions become part of a community in which they have a meaningful role they are more likely to be able to recover from their addiction and become a contributing member of the community. It seems that Hari’s observations are illustrated perfectly in groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and other similarly structured groups in which members become vulnerable with each other and, through the support of the group, are enabled to overcome the addiction.

The society in which I live is fiercely independent. Individual rights are placed above nearly everything else, resulting in pockets of isolated individuals that have a hard time seeing themselves as members of a larger community. Those with differing opinions, customs, cultures, and so forth, are seen as enemies to be avoided and overcome rather than sources of growth, enlightenment, enrichment, and healing. We want to appear strong and invincible to others, insisting our way is the best way, my way or the highway. I wonder what would happen if we would share the doubts that we all have deep within our hearts with others? Perhaps we could learn from each other and we could be released from our loneliness, the cultural addiction and solitary confinement to which we have all been sentenced.

The Blanket of Love

Sunday 3/8/2015 7:42 AM

I often view God’s will for my life as a specific road that I need to travel. When I stay on that road, then God is pleased and my life goes well and, if I stray from that road, then the wheels come off the bus and I either crash or lose my way. When viewed like this it is easy to become discouraged because, to be honest, from my perspective, I spend more time off the road than on it.

E. Glenn Hinson has a different perspective in his book, Horizonal Persons. He writes, “In (Paul’s) letters, the will of God, what pleases God, or what is acceptable to God has to do with what kind of persons we are, with attitude and outlook. God wants us to be persons who live our lives from the vantage point of a covenant with God through and in Jesus Christ, conscientized and sensitized and tenderized by love, make the very best decisions we can make in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.” God is more concerned about who I am and less concerned about what I do. If I am ruled by love my actions will be ruled by love. Then the circumstances will not matter; even in situations where there seems to be no “right” answer I will react in love, and, as 1 Peter 4:8 reminds me, love covers a multitude of sins.

Mercy and Trust

Sunday 3/1/2015 4:44 AM

My psalm for the week is Psalm 31. These verses caught my attention today. “I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not given me into the hand of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. … For I hear many whispering, ‘Terror on every side!’ They conspire against me and plot to take my life.” The psalmist continues, “But I trust in you, Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.”

In spite of the anguish and affliction of his body and soul, the writer asks for the mercy of God and then simply trusts that God will do what is best. I thought about what that kind of simple trust would look like in a society like ours. My thoughts were jarred from the abstract to the concrete by this prayer from my devotional material, “Lord of all, may we honor you by remembering the great deeds of compassion through which you have released us from the weight of our sin and strengthened us to bless you with our whole being. Let our lives reflect your mercy toward all who are fragile and your justice for all who suffer oppression.” When the mercy of God delivers me from the affliction and anguish of my soul, and I trust God with my life, then it frees me to see the anguish and the afflictions suffered by others. When I trust God with my life, then it frees me to act as God’s agent to be merciful toward others and to seek justice for those who are oppressed.

Rueben Job writes, “Salvation is free, but the cost of discipleship is enormous. … In offering ourselves as fully as we can, we discover the cost of discipleship. For to bind our lives to Jesus Christ requires that we try to walk with him into the sorrows and suffering of the world.” This kind of attitude seems to be contrary to the attitudes of many who call themselves Christian in our society today.

Many Christians blame the poor of our society for their poverty and claim they are simply lazy and unwilling to work without seeing the unjust systems that keep them in poverty. We fail to see the anguish of those who are raised in dysfunctional homes and we fail to reach out in love. Then we blame them for joining gangs or for entering into dysfunctional relationships and remaining in them in their desperate attempts to experience the love we take for granted.

If I really trusted God with my life I would pour it out for the benefit of others. If I recognize the mercy of God in my life instead of thinking that I have accomplished everything myself then I would be merciful to others. Lord, forgive me for being judgmental and for withholding love and mercy from those who are distressed. Give me the grace to acknowledge the mercy you have given me and help me so reach out to others with love in the same way that you reached out to me.