The Sanctity Of Tears

This year I learned of an ancient Hebrew practice that I've been mulling over ever since.

Just before and during the time of the Roman occupation of the Jerusalem and the surrounding vicinity, women mourned in a sacred way. When a loved one died, they collected their tears in a bottle to lay in the grave of the deceased as a last act of honor. Tears were holy.

I can think of two other places in Scripture that mention tears: a) Psalm 56:8: "You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?" b) the 

"woman of the streets" highlighted for her reverent faith in Luke 7. She washed Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair all the while kissing them.

Tears are holy.

I've cried a lot over my broken dreams and broken body the past seven years, but most of the time with an utterance of hatred toward God on my lips. These tears were not holy so they couldn't perform what they were designed to do: dignify and honor my grief and that which I was grieving.

Recently, I've nestled into the mystery that is God; I made a conscientious decision to dare to accept it and see what happened. And life has become lovelier.

If you read my last post, you know I've been crying a lot lately but these times, instead of being burdensome, they were my very source of relief; I haven't cried cursing God; I've cried in his lap.

But there still remains the questions: Why do there have to be tears in the first place?

This brings me 'round to the whole mystery-of-God thing. Reading On Job by founding liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez, has brought great insight into this relational reality. God is a self-disclosing, loving Mystery and it is the honor of kings to search him out (Prov. 25:2). I dare you, in the midst of your grief, to practice this theology for a week and see what happens. In the introduction, "Jose Maria Arguedas poses the question, 'Is not what we know far less than the great hope that we feel?' p. xi"

This Irrational Season

This time is very strange for me. I cannot currently regulate my emotions (Bipolar I Disorder), and while usually I have a cocktail of psychoactive drugs that lessen the sometimes crippling effects of this deficiency, I asked my doctor if we could lessen the amount of medicines that I'm on. We compromised and he cut the dosage of my Effexor in half (I was at the highest dose possible). The day I began my new regimen, I cried a lot...for no reason. As the days wore on (I believe I'm on day five but nothing appears quite calculable in this irrational season), it only got worse. My two worst symptoms? Mood swings and lethargy. Unfortunate is the man or woman that has crossed me, unfortunate am I if I think of anything remotely sad, and unfortunate is the person who tries to have a conversation with me because I may very well fall asleep.

Right now, I don't live by time; I live by pathos. I can only determine space by what I am feeling. Quite irrational indeed.

In my moments of coherence, I ask the Lord why he has afflicted me with a disorder that has prevented so much in my life. I don't ever get an answer, but I figure the squeaky wheel gets the oil, right?

But perhaps there is a reason for this irrational season, for this season of feeling completely bonkers out of control. There is a passage in The Heavenly Life that reads: "Sorrow reveals unknown depths of the soul, and unknown capacities for suffering and service... Sorrow is God's tool to plow the depths of the soul, that it may yield a richer harvest... God never uses anyone to a great degree until he breaks the person completely... It takes sorrow to expand and deepen the soul." Hope, yet!

Maybe my five years of Arabic study have not been for naught! Maybe, through this irrational season, God is preparing me for some form of service among the Arab peoples: a service which I've dreamt of for six years. Maybe this irrational season is no waste at all!