Some people emote by yelling (I have…and still do on occasion); some people get irritable (I have…and I still do on occasion); some laugh uncontrollably (Michael calls that “being overwrought”–it happens here, too, from time to time. We always say, “If you don’t laugh, you cry, so you might as well laugh” on those occasions).
And then there are those that cry when emotions take over. That’s me, from the get-go. (I am thankful that I have a few other friends who belong to this club.)
So why did I cry today in church during the singing of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”? (at least, I think that was the one…) It wasn’t that the words so touched my heart–although that has been known to happen and that Christmas carol does have words describing thoughts that should leave me awestruck.
I think today’s church tears were for loss. I looked around me and realized that a lot of people in sight were suffering loss or have done so recently. And, as happens sometimes, I cried for my own losses. I have times, every once in a while, where I am caught off-guard in a flash of grief for my grandma (who died in 2001) and Michael’s folks, my wonderful in-laws, who left this earth in 2004 and 2006. I have come to the conclusion that things and thoughts sometimes touch me deeply in church because it is there I am with a vulnerable heart. I guess it is the danger of opening the door truth and to love.
Then, there were those tears in the second wave of gratitude and love as I opened my Christmas present from Michael. It was a beautiful little tea set given so that I can have tea parties with Melanie and other future granddaughters I might be blessed to have. (I guess grandsons could have a tea party with Grandma, too, if they wanted to…I’m open to the idea.) I requested such a thing last year and he looked for one without success. In a time when money is a little tighter than usual and when practicality might not dictate this gift , I felt like–is her name Della?–in O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi, to realize the love behind the giving. My heart was touched in a very deep place and, of course, tears were the only response I could muster at the moment. (And little Melanie got her first taste Grandma doing the “my heart is touched” crying thing…)
I wonder if Mary cried when she “pondered all these things in her heart”, or if Joseph did when his dear Mary had labored in a stable to bring forth God’s Son and he was struck with the enormity of it all in the face of self-knowledge. I wonder if any of the shepherds “trickled” at the manger, realizing they, of all people, had been entrusted with the message of the angels, one which had been confirmed in the face of a newborn in a feed box. Someone, in all the drama of that first Christmas, must have been overwhelmed by love, or change, or the power of God’s presence and surely must have emoted through their tear ducts.
I am glad for tears and, today, I don’t mind admitting that I shed them.
Through Changing Eyes 