Daily 5 - Day 292

Today's Daily 5:

1. Hung out with family again
2. Discovered that there do seem to be a number of positions available that I would be qualified to fill
3. slow, lazy morning
4. going to get a lot of exercise house-sitting since the house is a 2km walk from the train station
5. thinking it will be a quiet evening of either reading or bubble-bath or both tonight.

Daily 5 - Day 291

Today's Daily 5:

1. Managed to actually accomplish a couple of "scheduled" day to day reality of life things
2. Hung out with the family, moving T & L into their new place and cleaning L's old place
3. Chinese take-out for dinner courtesy of T & L
4. Got a long walk in this morning
5. another night of sleeping actually fairly well...
6. housesitting, and thus, between family stuff and that, not being at Grandma's right now
7. laughing with one of my cousins over a particular mannerism of our Grandma

Holy Tears

It seemed appropriate to share these thoughts (formulated a little for American Memorial Day today) from Richard Rohr that arrived in my inbox this morning.  Especially given my teary experience at church yesterday.

~~~

As a young novice I only complained to my novice master once. We had to read a different life of St. Francis every month. I could not understand why St. Francis was crying all the time. He even invited Clare to visit and they spent the entire time crying “holy tears.” As a young nineteen-year-old male, this made no sense to me. Back in 1961 my novice master said to me, “you won’t understand it now, Richard, but you’ll understand it later.”

And now I do understand it. Tears can be a gift of the Holy Spirit. At the point when you can’t achieve the game of perfection, all you can do is offer to God who you are today, warts and all. Your willingness to offer your imperfect gift, knowing it will be totally received, brings you to tears—“holy tears.” There are many gifts of tears, however; sometimes you just cry for the pain and suffering of others, even though you yourself are not suffering at all. I am sure most of you have experienced such holy tears, maybe even today when we remember the many who have died so young, so alone, and sometimes so needlessly.

(Richard Rohr)

Daily 5 - Day 290

Today's Daily 5:

1. slept relatively peacefully last night
2. tears in church
3. more emails from a dear friend
4. "you give and take away"
5. time with family

You Give and Take Away

I cried during worship at my dad's church this morning.  I don't think that has ever happened before.  I'm not actually sure I've ever cried during a worship service.  You have to understand that tears don't flow easily for me, even now, all these years removed from depression.

But this morning I cried.

This processing the loss of my job is a weird thing.

Yes, I see it as a blessing.  Yes, it also sucks.

But this morning, I cried.

The line that got me was one from a Matt Redman song that has long been one of my favorites.  It's a song I fell in love with during depression.  A song that somehow echoed the cry of my heart in those times.  The cry that said, "even in these really dark spaces you, Jesus, are still worthy to be praised."  It's a cry that is resonating deeply right now.

But the lyric that drew tears this morning was this:

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Because when I started this job, it was very much a gift from God.  And somehow, the ending of it is also very much in the timing of God.  And that is not always easy to reconcile.

And so I stood this morning as my brother led worship, and tried to sing, and settled for simply raising my hands and closing my eyes as tears came.

(Ironicly, if this had been a charismatic church that repeats a song a number of times as God moves through it, I'd have been in big trouble.  I'm fairly certain I would have moved from quiet tears, subtly swiped away as the song ended, to full out sobs, less easy to keep out of the line of view of those around me.)

You give and take away, and still, your name is blessed.