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Weekly Blog 3/29/20

Fr. Jeff and others share reflections on the Sunday readings.

Sunday, March 29, 2020

“And Jesus wept.”


I went through two times in my life, both relatively short, when I didn’t cry. The first was after my parent’s divorce where the pain, even as a child, seemed too great and I imagined that I was Spock from Star Trek (because he didn’t have emotions) or a robot (for the same reason). So much did I identify with Spock that I practiced, over and over again, raising one eyebrow. You may catch that expression on my face to this day. It worked, for a time, but by trying to avoid pain, I also avoided healing. Eventually, I couldn’t bottle it all up anymore and I had to deal with it. Thankfully, from healthy examples in my life and a support group at St. Polycarp for children of divorced parents, I would learn to embrace or enter into the pain so as to pass through it and find a new beginning. Much later, I would discover this is the pattern of the Paschal Mystery, the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, which is repeatedly at work in our lives. It is only by bearing our crosses that we can reach new life. It is only by losing our life that we find it. And, it is only in dying that we are born to eternal life. There is no short cut, escape, or avoidance. We may use those to cope for a while, but in the end, they only lead to problems greater than the original pain. No, I couldn’t pretend not to hurt and, for me, that also meant tears—real, healing, and cleansing tears. 

 

The second time I didn’t cry was during my first years at the Air Force Academy. While it’s true I never enjoyed crying, I had developed something of a “renaissance man” image for myself in high school. Well rounded and passionately engaged in all human pursuits was the vision I had for myself and for a fully human life. Influenced by readings like Walden and the movie Dead Poets Society, like Thoreau, I wanted “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” Tears were a sign to me that I was profoundly moved by an experience, that I had embraced it and was changed by it. At the Academy, they became a sign of weakness and being overwhelmed. A soldier (or police officer, medical professional, firefighter, and a host of others for that matter) must perform under pressure. I learned under extreme stress to function, perform, and, even, sometimes excel. There was no place for spontaneous crying. It’s a skill I can use to this day, but I have realized that if I don’t enter into my emotions at the moment, I still must do so at some point. While preaching and presiding at my aunt’s funeral after her suicide, I easily held it all together, but allowed myself to weep during the responsorial psalm. Daily, in my morning prayer time, I share my emotions about the events of the previous day with God. It is good and necessary that tears sometimes flow. 


I write these reflections a week before they are in the bulletin or on the website and I can only guess at the developments of this week as we continue to face the spread of the COVID-19 virus. I am sure of more cases, more deaths, and more isolation. I have already cried more than once. The first time was at the beginning of our last funeral at St. Pat’s. Separating immediate family from friends and other loved ones so that we wouldn’t, at the time, have more than 50 people in the church, recognizing the pain in that moment of social distancing, and realizing that for some significant time our presence and care for that family and others in the future would be necessarily curtailed was incredibly painful. It is not who we are. As the church, we love people in the moments of deepest pain and we serve the greatest needs. It is hard to accept that we can’t do that as we should and as we have. It is profoundly painful. And so I cried. I cried for their loss as a family, I cried for our loss as a community, and I cried for my loss as a pastor. As I have learned in my life, it is love that brings tears. God is love. In our pain, God loves us. How do we know? Jesus wept.