Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s readings discuss the value of weeping—that “what we weep for” measures what we are, what others expect of us, and exposes the deepest, neediest, most private selves. She discusses “we cry about what we care about,” and “what we have no tears for hardens our hearts”.

1. Make a list of people, things, events that you weep over.

Without going into the gory details of “the list”, and the realization that I am a person who does not weep often, and the fact I am taking a mildly irritating attitude about the statement about my heart being hard about things I don’t have tears over (more on that later), what I will say is that everything on my list falls into two categories. The things I’ve wept over are either things in which I am feeling huge acute amounts of loss, or finally hit the bottom of a chronic sense of loss, or moments when I realize I have no clue as to “what’s next” and the worst case scenario seems so awful I don’t think I have the strength for it. I have a habit of putting too much stock in my own strength and “bravery” (I still think part of me clings to the notion of “Norse/Teutonic heaven” where the brave are rewarded and the weak are consigned to Hell) and when the “brave” thing to do is “take it up the butt and get past it” it can make me weep because of my own powerlessness and sense of impotence.

I think the absolute worst emotion for me is “feeling totally impotent.” It’s even worse than fear of death, if you can imagine that. All of the things on the list that can make me weep eventually all intersect at “I am impotent in this scenario.”

2. Reflect on how and to whom you reveal your “deepest, neediest, most private” self. What feelings arise in allowing yourself to cry and lay bare your soul?

Right now, I think there are about five people (maybe six) that I would reveal my “deepest, neediest, most private” self, and even then, the tendency is that I was “discovered” weeping rather than my actively gone to them and wept in their presence. The last time this happened to me is probably as good an example as any. I was discovered weeping. On a large scale, it was ok, because it was by someone I’d be ok with this discovery in a global sense. But in the moment, it was very hard. Part of the discomfort was there was a disconnect between our words and our body language. Our words were trying to bring closeness and reassurance but I am sure both of our body language cues yelled, “Let me out of here.” He was embarrassed to have discovered me; I was embarrassed to have been discovered. I truly so seldom weep (I don’t mean “cry”, I mean “weep”) that when I do, it’s fairly spectacular and fairly “Old Testament,” short of ripping my clothes apart! I mean we are talking sobbing till my collar is wet and babbling incoherently.

It took me clear into the next day to reconcile myself that my having been discovered was “ok by him and ok by me.” I have thought about why that was in the couple months or so since it happened. I realize in retrospect that much what embarrassed me in this situation is based in illusion. At the time this happened my embarrassment was based in these aspects:

A. I was weeping at the time over the continuing loss I am experiencing over one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had in this world. I was discovered by another good friend, and I did not want him to see how much this person I’m losing means to me because it is at a level that may appear “strange” or “weird”. (In retrospect, I realize the friend that discovered me probably knew I felt this way over the friend I was weeping over, anyway, and in reality, it may well be one of the parts of me that actually strengthens, rather than distances, our friendship.)

B. I like to believe that part of the image the friend that discovered me has of me is that I can “handle anything” (and I frequently DO!). I like to believe that he always knows he can count on me when he feels unsure and insecure. I like him to think I would protect him from any harm of which I possibly could protect him. Catching me weeping pretty much blew the image I wanted him to see of me out of the water all to hell. I thought, “How can he ever believe in my ability to protect him when I can’t even protect myself?” (In retrospect, I am starting to understand that what makes your closest friends “close” is that there are parts of them that have a need to nurture and protect YOU, too, and it can’t all be a one-way exchange if you want that friendship to be as real as it can be.)

C. I realize there are dynamics to being caught weeping by guys vs. girls. I do not like to be caught weeping by my friends who are guys because, going back to my original reason for weeping (emotional impotence)...well...I just don’t want any of my friends who are guys to ever think I suffer from any make, shape or form of “impotence” even if we are only talking about “emotional impotence”! Also, there are women out there who use tears and weeping as a way of manipulating men sexually, playing up on the male tendency to “rescue” (and damn effectively, at that.) That’s not me, and I would never want this friend to think that was what I was up to, especially since I sort of see that as something that might have been used against him in the past. (In retrospect, I think we honor the honesty in each other, for lack of a better reason, “He just would not think that about me, at least not beyond a fleeting thought, anyway”, and as far as the “impotence” thing goes, really, I don’t think my impotent moments scare him, it’s more about “my illusion that my impotence would make him think less of me.”)

D. In my family, the classic way to “fight dirty” was to catch you at a weak moment, then ram the knife in your soft underbelly, so you’d really be “taught a lesson”. It taught me to avoid exposing my weaknesses whenever possible. Consequently, it taught me to make it hard to weep, so when I do, it’s VERY vulnerable to me. I don’t like being caught with my soft underbelly laid bare. (In retrospect, I was discovered by the last person in the world who would ever exploit me in this way, so that was a non-issue except between my own ears.)

What I am realizing about weeping is the terribly equalizing and leveling thing about it is that it shatters every single illusion we want to imagine is “our image of us” to others. It forces us to have to deal with those in our world in the most bare and honest of ways. Even someone like me, who prefers “bare and honest” doesn’t always want to do “bare and honest” at our most vulnerable moments!

3. If “what we cry about is what we care about,” and “what we have no tears for hardens our hearts,” what do you care about and where has your heart been hardened?

I have a problem with this question. “Hardening our hearts” sounds pretty dramatic and harsh here. Many of us were TRAINED not to weep because of reason “D” I put down in #2. I think a lot of us have tears, they are just locked inside a semi-impervious coating and we yearn for them to come out but they are sometimes bound up and trapped inside this coating. Sometimes, over time, they just dry up, but the salt and the residue of those tears still remain inside of us. I think the problem is that those salts and residue can become toxic and somewhere, sometime, there has to be release. So I will take some amount of exception to the question.

But I care the most about that whole “loss/abandonment” struggle. I don’t think my heart has been permanently “hardened” by the things I could not cry about, but more like there is this “desiccated powder” in there that all it would take is a little water to re-hydrate it and release it. Maybe part of my spiritual journey at this point is about “re-hydrating some of my dried tears and getting rid of them—just not all at once.” I am not sure about that, though, and I need to think about that one some more.