The reasons behind tears are irrational and therefore very interesting. I teared up viewing a Cigeros video, hearing a Tom Wright quote in class, responding to a friend saying some beautiful words my way, and finally at coffee expressing thoughts surrounding women’s liberation—all in the last 24 hours. If I were to take the rational route I would ask myself if I had consumed to much fiber—or perhaps as one friend suggested, ‘is it that time of the month.’ I might even begin to question what kind of emotional weight I have been carrying that would induce tears. My friend Scott and I were running through mountains the other day, it was just great out, and even after we got hit by a car while trying to park, our spirits were high on the mountain air. As we ran we reflected on ‘burn out’, concluding that the emotional is physical. A later conversation with Wendy brought up the fact that the physical is emotion. We as humans are not disconnected from ourselves. No matter how hard we try to alienate our heart from our hands, it just won’t work. It all belongs, we are worth loving.
My tears are coming from a good stream these days. They are in some ways refreshing—kind of like exhaling. This cry, as sudden as some tears are, is what begins salvific history. It is our longing, our physical expression of what is happening in the depths, that God turns an acute ear toward. God moves in these moments, like when a race starts and the participants throw themselves into the activity, trained by a practiced reaction. I am learning that God participates often through participants. And Jesus is a fleshy God that was as much a participant as he was participating in God’s life. And Jesus cried, over a friend and from the cross. To cry is to hurt, emotionally and physically, and to set something in motion. Love, I think, follows a similar pattern. To love is to hurt, emotionally and physically, and to set something in motion.
