Healing Tears

Today's gospel reading speaks eloquently about one indispensable preparation for receiving the Holy Spirit: a feeling of need and inadequacy. These drive us to tears, and thence to God. We are not alone in our tears. God is with us. so are others.

Jn 16,20-23.

Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy. When a woman is in labor, she is in anguish because her hour has arrived; but when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the pain because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. So you also are now in anguish.

But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. On that day you will not question me about anything. Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.


It may seem harsh to say so, but tears and heartache are part of the Christian life. However, they are never ends in themselves, nor are they our personal property. They are merely a portal through which we enter into sharing the Lord's eternal portion of suffering on behalf of the world. That sharing IS the gift of God's Spirit, poured out in our hearts and in our world.

Michael Casey states it well in Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer.

"A strange thing takes place in prayer. There is a mysterious coupling of our own life with the lives of others- an embrace that includes the whole of humanity. At first, prayer stems from a sense of personal neediness. We never quite escape this feeling, but in penetrating deeper into our indigence we become aware that this need for God is not private property.

We are not alone in being without resources: the whole human race cries out to God for redemption. Prayer progressively becomes less a self-centered plea for personal deliverance than a unviersal cry for help - and for the coming of God's kingdom. the weakness and weariness of all are made personal in me; I come to experience them as my own. And when, from the depths of need or grief I turn to God, prayer arises on behlaf of all."

Thoughts from the Cabin Door

Well, after I arrived here at the Cistercian Abbey I realized I was assigned to Room 1- a very un-monastic suite with Internet access. So, here I am, blogging during my retreat. As Oscar Wilde said, I can resist anything but temptation.

It's OK to feel sad sometimes.

Yesterday was a grey day, both outside and within.
A few things at work,
and then driving through the grey rainy country side toward the Abbey,
and then discovering that my older son probably didn't make it into All State Choir,
all these things conspired together to make me feel a little blue.

Then, listening to MPR, I heard an old familiar song, sung anew by James Taylor (what a way to make me nostalgic for the 1970's- Sweet Baby James!) .

I used to quote these lyrics in the depth of depression. Now they just seem like real life. It's not that I am so very depressed. It's that life has a way of catching up with you when you get older.

Hard Times Come Again No More
by Stephen Foster

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door.
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh! hard times, come again no more.

Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor.
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears,
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

Chorus:

Hard times, come again no more.
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door.
Oh Hard times, come again no more.

There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er.
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day
- Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
-Oh! Hard times, come again no more.