IT'S NOT OKAY NOT TO CRY

One of the blessings of my life is that when I was a child and I got hurt, whatever the hurt, and started to cry, my Mom never said to me, "Billy, big boys don't cry". She allowed me to cry because that is what my being, my inner self, told me I was supposed to do at that moment. I hurt. I was in pain and tears spontaneously started to flow. Mom didn’t try to find an excuse for me to stop the tears. They were a part of life.

They still are. Tears well up in our eyes and we can do nothing to prevent them from so doing. Yes, once we sense the tears, we may want to do all we can to stop the flow so as to pretend to all who might see them that we are brave and strong and can control our emotions. We may fool others but we cannot fool ourselves. Nor should we. Those tears arose because something deep inside us forced them to the surface. We did not will them even if we, in some sense of foolish pride, wished they had kept to themselves.

Tears of pain when we fall and get hurt, tears of joy over the birth of our child, tears of pride when the National Anthem is played at the Olympics, tears of sorrow at the death of our Mom: all these are spontaneous. They are natural and they should never be suppressed for any reason no matter how macho, how in control of our emotions we are supposed to be. If someone else is embarrassed because tears came to our eyes, that is that person's problem. If we are embarrassed by our tears, we should be ashamed.

The shortest verse in the Bible tells us simply that "Jesus wept". (John 11:35) Remember the story? Jesus' close friend Lazarus had died and Jesus came to mourn. Even though he knew what he was going to do, namely, raise Lazarus from the dead, at that moment his humanity and the emotions that are part of that humanity took over and he simply broke down and cried. That sad part in this incident is that many of those who came to mourn Lazarus looked at the weeping Jesus and instead of seeing a human being honestly overcome with grief, took him to task for not preventing Lazarus' death in the first place.

What was, and probably still is, even worse is that Jesus' raising of Lazarus got more attention than did his tears of compassion. Yet, for you and for me who want to imitate Jesus in our daily lives, the one way we can do so is to have compassion on the same people with whom Jesus was compassionate and for whom he shed many tears: the sick, the naked, the lonely, the imprisoned, those in need. We will not raise people from the dead, but our tears of compassion can raise us up to do something to help those very people find resurrection and new life in the here and now.

It is not okay to not have compassion on those for whom we should have compassion and for whom we should be shedding compassionate tears. It is not okay not to cry when in pain, whatever that pain may be. Those tears that well up in us spontaneously are a call to respond in a positive, humane and Christian way using whatever gifts God has given us to do so. Sometimes all we can do is let the tears flow. Sometimes we can do more.

Big boys don't cry? That's a lie. It's a sign of our bigness that we, male or female, can and do cry.

THERE ARE STRINGS ATTACHED

Over the years we all have been offered something with what the giver calls "no strings attached". The point the giver is trying to make is that if we accept their gift, there will be nothing expected from us in return. Of course, there is that cynic inside us that does not believe it for a minute. There is no such thing as a free lunch, we say to ourselves. Everything, it seems, comes with some kind of string attached. 

Sometimes in our cynicism we believe that gifts even from loved ones come with strings attached, strings that can seem like ropes tying us to the gift giver. We are expected to give a gift in return. The more this give-and-give back continues, the stronger the string becomes. It is part and parcel of our relationship with the one or ones to whom we have bound ourselves and who have bound themselves to us. It is life-giving and life-receiving for both. Neither would willingly let go of the string because each holds on for dear life, truly dear life. Sometimes it is only broken by death.

The same is true for any relationship we have, not just those that are one-to-one, friend-to-friend, spouse-to-spouse, lover-to-lover. It extends to parent to children, teacher to student, member of a community to a member of the community -- and vice versa in each of these instances. That invisible string that is often made manifest by visible gift-giving is the commitment each of us has to the other to do whatever it takes to make that relationship not only last but to grow even stronger.  But before any of that can happen, we need to be aware that such relationships do come with strings attached and that we welcome and accept those strings with every fiber of our being. That is not always easy to do.

We have all had those strings broken by the other and we have broken them ourselves. It has almost always, if not always, been a painful experience. It has been painful because both partners have expended much time and energy and love to make the relationship work even if the relationship was never meant to be life long, even if we knew it would be temporary when we first entered into it.

As a parish priest it has always been painful to break the strings of my relationships with the people I was called to serve even though I knew and they knew this relationship would not last forever or, perhaps, even for very long. But for however long it was going to last, and, again, none of us knew how long that would be when we entered into it, we grabbed the string and held on for as long as we could, each doing what we needed to do to keep it as strong as we could for as long as we could. And then when it came time to break the string and for us to separate, it was painful, but it was pain tempered by loving and lasting memories.

In the end, when the strings are broken because of circumstances in our control or out of our control, all we can hope for is that the pain that comes when the string is cut is softened by the love that still remains. In this life strings are always attached in any voluntary relationship. That is good and it is good for us and so we must do all we can to keep the string strong.

LEISURE

Many years ago I had to write an essay for a college English class in “The Quintessence of America.” Before I could even begin to write, I had to open my dictionary to learn the meaning of quintessence. I had never heard that word before. It means the “purist and most perfect form, manifestation, type, or embodiment (of a quality, etc.)”. I have no memory of what I deemed to be the quintessence of America.

What I do remember is the class when my professor returned our essays and commented on each as he was wont to do. When he finished commenting, he, thankfully, told us what he believed to be the answer to the essay question. It was a one-word response: “Calvinism”. The longer version is called “The Protestant Work Ethic.” He even admitted that in a Rodman Catholic seminary where I happened to be studying at that time, that ethic ruled our lives. In many ways it still does, mainly for the better, but not always so.

One of the main reasons why our country as a country has been and still is so great is that our work force is unconsciously ruled by that ethic translated into “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” Yet it is more than that, and that is the downside of that ethic. We are also told that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. Thus, we should keep our hands to the grind wheel, be busy all the time. The corollary is that pleasure of almost any kind, if not every kind, is somehow somewhat bad and, thus, sinful. That almost but not quite means that even any form of leisure is somehow sinful. We may not believe that but, we in this country, often act that way.

Think about it: most people in what are called “Western” nations take six- to eight-week vacations, find time in the afternoon to relax and rest (called “siestas”), arrive at work later than we do and leave earlier. We work overtime and on weekends, take our laptops on vacation, are always connected to our cell phones and often do not take the vacation days allotted to us. The Protest Work Ethic rules and we allow it to rule, and, again, not for the better much of the time.

Several years later in my seminary education, when I was studying theology over 60 years ago, several daring theologians began writing articles on the theology of leisure. Imagine that: there might be a theological justification for leisure, for pleasure, justification that God would not oppose but would actually sanction! An idle mind may be the devil’s workshop; but a mind and a life that never rests or relaxes is even worse. Is it any wonder so many are so stressed out and then wind up doing harm to themselves, to their loved ones and to those around them?

We are now into the traditional vacation season of the year, a time when we are to vacate our minds and bodies and rest. That time is given to us for our benefit, for our health and well-being. If we allow that ethic that seems to control our lives to continue to do so, we will not make time for rest and leisure and we will be the worse for it and, again, so will all those who are part of our lives, wherever they are a part. The Creation Story at the beginning of the Bible reminds us that God took a day off at the end of his work. God rested. Why should we be any different?

TEN THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

One of the blessings of the internet is that friends send you stuff that they find interesting and that you might also. I found the following ten thoughts for today sent to me, by whom I do not remember, that I think deserve to be shared – with my reflection in italics. 

1. Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout. Prayer should be part of our daily life/routine even when it becomes routine. That’s the point!
 
2. Why is a car’s windshield is so large and the rear view mirror is so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. So, look ahead and move on.  We cannot undo the past. We can only learn from it by moving on. We can’t if we live in the past.
 
3. Friendship is like a book: it takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write. We need to cultivate friendships because., in this life, we need one another. We cannot go it alone no matter how much we sometimes think we should.
 
4. All things in life are temporary.  If all is going well, enjoy it; that will not last forever. If all seems to be going wrong, don't be overcome with worry, that can't last long either. Nothing in this life lasts forever even when, in bad times, we think those times will never end. They will. The only thing that lasts forever is our life with God in eternity, and nothing will beat that!

5. Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! Because to hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold! We build upon old friendships because old friends will always be there for us, and vice versa.
 
6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, it's just a bend, not the end! There is always resurrection and new life. Always! Somehow in some way God helps us bring resurrection no matter how hopeless we think the situation is.
 
7. When God solves our problems, we have faith in God’s abilities; when God doesn't solve our problems God has faith in our abilities. God will not do for us what God expects us to do for ourselves; nor should God nor should we.
 
8. A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"  Without a vision, the prophet said, the people perish. So do we as individuals.
 
9. When we pray for others, God listens to us and blesses them, and sometimes, when we are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for us. We are in this together.

10.  Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's peace. How often have we been obsessed, worrying about things that never happened?