Fr. David Steindl-Rast and the Gratefulness network have been doing their best to raise an awareness re: how gratitude in all its forms can bring a measure of healing to our broken and cynical culture. If you don't know his work, let me commend this link to you: https://gratefulness.org/brother-david/about-brother-david/ As I noted in another post, the network is currently sharing a series of emails designed to reacquaint us with a few simple, natural blessings that take place every day. Today's note asked us to return thanks for the gift of our tears.O Source of All Blessings,
you bless us with tears — tears
of sorrow and tears of joy, tears
of outrage and of overwhelming
beauty. May I let them flow freely,
especially the waters that rise up
when the ice of anger cracks and
thaws in my heart, and the flood
tides of an oceanic feeling deep in
my heart that wash my eyes from
within and make me gentle toward
others.
I don't know about you, but I cry a lot. I cry when I hear poignant song lyrics or beautiful melodies on the car radio. I weep when I read the news. When I am angry at cruelty or selfishness - from myself or another - my eyes fill with tears and I can't see straight. Movies, TV shows and even some commercials open the flood gates for me. And time and again, just being in the presence of loved ones gives birth to soft, silent tears and I realize I am full to overflowing with gratitude. Fr. Ed Hays used to say, "Let us pray all ways and always. Remember, Jesus wept and his tears were some of his most authentic prayers." It has taken me decades to come to terms with my tearful prayers.
For years I hated them as they made me look weak. But, incrementally and in ways beyond my control, I am learning to value my weakness and honor the fact that my heart breaks easily. Tears have convinced me that Mother Theresa was right: "God breaks our hearts so that we have more room to love." And didn't St. Leonard Cohen teach that "there is a crack, a crack in everything for that's how the light gets it?"
Perhaps it was my awareness of this waiting that touched me so profoundly when I read the monthly poem from the Gratefulness Network, "Waiting" by Toko-Pa Turner. Tears came quickly with these words long before the day took on its own energy.
which trusts the agents of fermentation.
There is a waiting
which knows that in pulling away
one can more wholly return.
There is the waiting
which prepares oneself,
which anoints and adorns
and makes oneself plump
with readiness for love’s return.
There is a good kind of waiting
which doesn’t put oneself on hold
but rather adds layers to the grandness
of one’s being worthy.
This sweet waiting
for one’s fruits to ripen
doesn’t stumble over itself
to be the first to give
but waits for the giving
to issue at its own graceful pace.
Both my tears and these words stayed just below the surface for me today: at band practice, while driving, as I watered the garden and then later visited with Lucie. Tears, I have come to realize, are one of the ways God helps me from becoming used to the brutal and callous utilitarianism of the current regime. They also connect me to the sacred beyond words and unite me with those I love in ways I cannot articulate. Thank God my tears still flow so freely.
No comments:
Post a Comment