Like a lot of men, I have very little experience with personal tears. I bet that I have such limited experience with tears that I can name 90% of the times I have had tears (not as the result of being kicked in the groin or allergies):
I “sports cried” when I watch Dirk hold up the 2011 NBA championship. Yes, I joined the rest of the human race in tearing up watching the opening sequence in “Up”.
I was caught off guard when tears came over me when I was talking about the beauty and brokenness of the UMC after returning from General Conference 2016.
When I was appointed to a new church and had to say goodbye to a dear friend, I was grateful that she was shorter than I was so she could not see me ugly cry when we hugged for one of the last times.
Seeing my children for the first time was a big tear moment. So was waiting at the end of the center isle when those doors flung open and there stood the one person who I was about to make covenantal vows with. Then there was those two times where I sat in a parking lot and heard a song that made my eyes so red that I drove around the block just to try to minimize my eyes puffiness.
I suppose there where those three Easter sermons over the years where I was so moved by the story of light and hope and resurrection accompanied by images of love and delight that were also very tearful.
That is it.
There are many stories of ancient desert Christians (called the Abbas and Ammas) that feature tears or weeping. Often in these stories, tears and weeping come with of some understanding of sin or awareness of truth or revelation of love. In fact, it might be argued that tears did not come as a result of new awareness but the new awareness was the result of tears.
Meaning, it was the tears that helped the ancient one see more clearly than they had before.
We are told that tears in our eyes cloud our vision, however, that is not always true. Many times tears allow us to see more clearly by washing out what was clouding our vision to begin with. Tears are not the product of, but the initiation to new sight.
Maybe this is why so many of us (and I am talking to myself here) are blind. We have little experience with tears to wash out our blind spots and ignorance.
The Good Little Giants “Birdsong” has a stanza that goes:
Sometimes a grown man cries
To grieve the years he spent believing lies
He sees more clearly now through tears in his eyes
Maybe sometimes, baby, sometimes
And so, may we be blessed with tears.
