Thank you

For all the kind comments (and links, Joel) on my "Tears" post.

Thinking about it, a few days later, I think I realize a couple things:

1. I am very much a "head" person. I intellectualize everything. I am much more swayed by evidence than I am by feelings. And so - for once, having a strong emotion, was kind of scary.

1a. I am not comfortable with strong emotion. I am not comfortable with situations where I feel I may "lose my stuff" as I said. Seriously - when I want to tell my parents how much I love them, I have to write them a letter. I cannot tell them.

I am good at "doing" "I love you" (either by gifts or actions) but I have a very, very hard time "saying" "I love you." I do not know why. (It is also hard for me to say, "I'm sorry, I screwed up." But I'm better at saying that when necessary).

I don't think it's solely a fear-of-rejection thing (though that might be part of it). I mean - I know my parents would never ever rebuff me if I told them I loved them. But I still find it extremely hard. And it's hard impossible for me to tell people that I am afraid would actually rebuff me.

(Which is probably a part-factor in why I'm not married: I'm just not demonstrative enough, especially in situations where I fear that demonstration may be rejected or ridiculed).

2. I don't do strong emotion well. I just don't. It frightens me a little. Infatuation frightens me a little, too - I can totally see the connection that some neurobiologists have proposed, that it's a bit like the early stages of OCD.

3. But the biggest thing, the thing that really spooked me, was how the tears felt like they were from something OUTSIDE me, if that makes sense - I did not expect them and I could not control them. And normally, I am exceptionally good at control.

Also, they were a different KIND of tears. The most tears I've had in the past few years have either been of sadness over some event (someone I knew passing away) or, even more commonly, of frustration. (I am not good at getting angry with people - I am much more likely to excuse myself from the conversation and go into a room alone and cry with frustration when I'm angry, than I am to cuss out/lash out/chew out another person.)

These tears were something totally other...not really sadness in the traditional sense, because I know "the rest of the story" (as I pointed out to the youth group last week: we, as modern Christians, may not understand the full import of Good Friday for the disciples because we know what happened the following Sunday, and they didn't know about that until it happened). It was more just a being suddenly overwhelmed.

I don't know if that fits Kate's definition of "holy tears," that's something I'm not familiar with and I'm not going to be so self-important as to try to diagnose it in myself.

But it really was like being in the grip of something outside of myself.

And that frightened me a little. Or maybe unsettled is a better word.

And maybe, isn't that okay? Isn't that what faith is supposed to be like, sometimes? (I keep thinking of the phrase, "Not a tame Lion" from the Narnia books).

Another funny thing about it - years and years ago, when I was younger and sillier and had more doubts than I have now (not that I don't doubt from time to time; I think most thinking faithful people do - maybe not doubt but wonder and question), I once said to God, "You know, I'd really really believe you existed if I had some kind of sign. If I actually felt something strongly when I prayed or when I went to church or something. It doesn't have to be anything big but it has to be something I recognize"

(I wonder: how many adolescents have said that over the years? I'd bet lots, if not most, who were raised in some kind of faith).

And I never really got what I took as "that sign." I went on, for years, cycling through doubt and faith, back and forth, and finally settling on "faith, with some questions" as the default.

And then I get what might have been some sort of a sign, when I'm probably at the time when my faith is the strongest it's been since I was a child.

Well, I've long believed that God has a sense of humor.