Tears

I learned an important lesson about tears a few years back, while I was spending time on the Navajo Reservation.  During one of the meals, our host began to tell us more about his family and life there.  As he began to tell about his parents, who had since passed away, he started to cry.  Just there, in the middle of the lunch table, in the middle of talking, just crying, missing the people who had brought him into the world.  One of the girls who had initially got him talking on the subject quickly apologized, reflecting all of our discomfort at having pushed our normally stoic leader into such a sad state."

"Don't apologize," he said, getting serious as tears continued to stream down his cheeks.  "Don't apologize for tears, that takes away from the importance of what you are crying for.  I loved my parents, and I would never apologize for crying on their behalf."

"Way I see it," he says, "is that tears are our body's way of healing.  It's not so much a falling apart as a falling back together - it's our body's way of putting itself back together after it is broken down."

Sometimes I wonder why we have such finite bodies.  We come from something so vast,  how are we suppose to live in these little finite temples.

Maybe it's a gift.  God's way of allowing us something to hold on to, something to grab and touch and love.  In a hug, maybe we can try and embrace everything a person carries - all the incredible joy and the immense sadness.  Maybe when we hold each other, just for a second, we can hold all of that other stuff too.

That way, in holding these little finite bodies, we really hold all of existence.