“You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?”
Psalm 56:8
My husband often tells me that I should cry more. As a child, I was probably discouraged from crying, although I don’t recall specific instances of my tears being silenced. I can cry easily at sad movies - even touching commercials - but it seems more difficult to cry from my own experiences. However, when tears well up as I share with my spiritual director or close friend, it is a reliable signal that something deep and true is being touched, and it’s good to linger there.
I have heard many people say “I wish I could have a good cry.” They sense the relief that might come if they could cry. According to Dr. William Frey of Minneapolis, our bodies produce three types of tears: reflex, continuous (basal) and emotional. Reflex tears clear our eyes of toxins and other irritants, and basal tears continually lubricate our eyes - producing up to 10 oz. a day. But emotional tears have other special health benefits. They contain stress hormones which are excreted from the body through crying and they stimulate the production of endorphins, our body’s natural natural pain killer and “feel-good” hormones. I guess that’s what is meant by a “good cry.”
The early Christian desert fathers and mothers had the highest regard for what they called "the gift of tears." According to Alan Jones these drops "are like the breaking of the waters of the womb before the birth of a child." ...a wonderful way to describe the connection between pain and joy!...
Weeping arises from the heart and signifies an open and softened heart. Perhaps that is why so many people are embarrassed to cry; they do not want to reveal their vulnerability. Yet many of us have felt the rich communal dimensions of crying with others. (Spirituality and Practice)
You never know what may cause tears. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it. ...But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention.
They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where… you should go next. (Frederick Buechner)
Suggested Prayer Practice: Tasting the Salty and Sweet
On a table in front of you, place a bowl of grapes and a small bowl of salt water.
Reflect on the situations in your life -- both the sweet and the salty (painful or bitter or sad - that might elicit tears)
As you pick up a grape, name something sweet and something salty/painful/bitter/sad.
Take a sweet grape and dip it into the salt water.
Eat the grape noticing how the sweet and salty tastes mingle together in your mouth.
You can continue on naming different things that you hold in your life, dipping the grapes in the salty water.
You might like to invite others to join you, sharing the places of "salty" and sweet of your lives. (You can also use other fruit - such as berries, or slices of apple and pear.)
This prayer is a tangible, sensory experience of naming and tasting both the sweet and salty of our lives -- not denying or diminishing either, but allowing them to simultaneously exist within us, and perhaps to hold some kind of conversation?
How might they inform one another?
You may read this blessing before or after you share this prayer practice:
Blessing of the tears (Jan Richardson)
That I may be filled with them
That I may be emptied by them
That they may challenge
My silence
That they may lead me
To speech
That I may name each
That I may be named by each one
That they may teach me
Of my sorrow
That they may lead me
To my strength
As we remember that our greatest comfort and healing come from God, you are invited to listen to this deeply moving spiritual...
Music: There is a Balm in Gilead (Sweet Honey in the Rock)
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
~ Minquass tribe proverb
(please feel free to name your bitter and sweet (or your experience with this prayer) in the comments below)
Dear Jo,
I am so very sorry for the loss of your sister Roberta.
May God meet you in your tears.
And may you feel embraced by a Great Love that also embraces your sister.
I will be remembering you~
Donna
For some reason I am reading this for the first time today (Sunday 5/2).
Bitter-tears shed for days, and still falling, at the death of my beloved younger sister Roberta on March 7. The tears are a gift, This reading was a blessing to me.
Sweet- Singing "All My Life You Have Been Faithful" during worship this morning.
I am amazed at the freedom and truth that may come after a hard and necessary emotional cry. Thank you for creating and sharing this profound reflection on tears.
bitter - wearing a mask while attempting to teach immigrant/refugee students also wearing masks; difficulty of hearing them and not seeing sound formations
sweet - the strength of my daughter by my side as my husband and I prepare to sell our home of 30 years
bitter - isolation, lack of touch, suffering and deaths due to Covid-19
sweet - time spend in nature which nurtures my soul