Skip to main content

Sometimes I Don't Mind Crying

This week, I cried* a few times.

I cried a lot on Wednesday.

I cried when I saw my friend waiting to walk in to her mother's funeral. I cried when she got up to share about her mom. I cried when the minister choked up during her eulogy. I cried when I hugged my friend during the reception. I cried at the internment when I saw her nephew trying not to cry. I bawled* as my friend came over to two of us after and we mourned together.

I cried again as I told my own mother about the day over the phone.


This morning, at church, I cried.I cried when I saw the smile on my friend's face as she waited to be baptized. I cried when she said Jesus has been calling her for a long time and she's ready to say yes. I cried when another girl said she called herself an atheist not that long ago, but she has seen Jesus change her life. I cried when a big man choked up and couldn't speak. I cried when another big man shared that he has had dark days and has not been a good son to his mother. I cried when a man walked slowly, with the aid of a cane, to the microphone and he told us that he has a disease that will kill him, but he is not afraid of it anymore.

I am glad for all those tears.


 
(at my church, you get dunked in a trough of cold water...)


*crying = tears in my eyes
bawling = snot running out my nose
There is no inbetween.
Labels:

Comments

  1. afro-chick10:05 PM

    & i am crying as i read this. i'm going to hug my mom now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jill12:46 PM

    Selina and I think getting dunked in a tin trough of cold water for your baptism would be pretty amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. V12:55 PM

    yep. crying too.
    although i do have an in between.
    it's interesting how tears communicate such a diverse range of emotions.
    i cry all the time.
    plus i'm an empathetic crier. so if you're crying, there's a real good chance that i'm crying too.
    love you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thi...
1 comment
Read more

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro...
2 comments
Read more

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st...
Post a Comment
Read more