On Crying, Tears, And Broken Things.

A Poetic Essay.

Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash

We tend to find the common things of man very uncommon to actually think about. But it’s the casual that often reminds us we do live in a fantasy story of sorts. These common things can be just as fantastical as the dragons we read about and the wizards we cherish.

Think on crying.

Yes, crying. That thing we do far too often or not nearly often enough. That unscripted liturgy every human has enmeshed in their nature. A thing we can’t escape. A thing we often long to feel.

Think on art. What’s behind a great film? A great book? Are there not tears? Why?

I think crying is one’s wrestle with the beautiful, with the goodness found in that ancient garden.

Even the ugly tears. Even the ones that can’t make much of a sound. When you say goodbye to a loved one—a loved one who, three months ago, was coaching baseball and is now only living by means of a tube down his throat, seemingly aloof to the tears of a small crowd.

Even this is a wrestle with the beautiful.

It’s wrestling with, “Where is it?” We all have the same theme song playing in our soul. And boy, is it loud when suffering makes its obnoxious and often cruel entrance.

A song that promises no death.

A song that promises spring and summer.

Yet here we are, frozen and shivering. So we wrestle. “Why am I looking at this?” Not even, “Why is he dying?” but, “Why is there death?”

We can spit out the circle of life.

But do you not think even that feels wrong? Feels as if we were meant to last, even if we notice we’re built to die.

Or we might cry at an encounter with the beautiful. I still remember finishing Brothers Karamazov for the first time, a book that moved me to tears, not due to its sadness but because of its complete beauty.

Why does a groom weep at the sight of his bride? Is marriage really that bad? Or is marriage really that beautiful?

When you really think on this phenomenon that is crying, do you not see how strangely odd it is? We cry at the good. We cry at the bad.

We twist up our face, and water falls from our eyes, as if our soul incarnates in salty tears.

Crying is a reminder that we are human and that suffering melts us.

Then you look at those who refuse to engage in this practice. Mighty men scowling at the world, knuckles white and clenched.

Are they not the most unhappy beings?

Because they force themselves not to be unhappy for a moment, they remain unhappy for their whole life.

How many people die due to a lack of crying? For the only reason the prideful refuse to cry is because they refuse to admit their human.

We prize men to have the emotional capacity as a block of steel.

If only Adam cried a bit more.

And we think of crying as an end. But is it not even more so a beginning? What addict doesn’t find healing among tears?

Crying is that strange thing. Nobody wants to do. But let me ask, in moments of your life. Where you feel your Character skyrocketed to new heights. Or moments where you finally understood yourself more fully. Were their not tears.

Are not our best days the days that make us better?

And in those days do we not find tears.

A thing I find so beautiful about Christendom is that it promises there is no purposeless tear. Throughout all of history, throughout all the bloodshed and beauty, when we zoom out far enough—until our thumb and pointer finger prove raw—that same garden, now rot and dust, will spring forth nourished by a promise.

A promise concerning tears.

A promise that they don’t have the final say.

So cry, dear reader. Cry until your heart sighs.

For crying is cool.

For it’s an implied reminder that we were made for Eden.