Through studying Francis of Assisi, Richard Rohr learned that weeping is a mode of being that relinquishes any need to be in control:
When I was a Franciscan novice in 1961, I only went to my novice master once with a complaint. Every month, we had been encouraged to read another life of Saint Francis. I kept reading about Francis going off into a cave and crying. These books said he spent whole days in tears, weeping. Frankly, this made no sense to me, so I went to my novice master. I said, “What’s he crying about all the time? I don’t get it. I don’t know if I want to be a Franciscan.” My educated, rational mind already resisted that kind of losing, weakness, vulnerability. My novice master told me, “You won’t understand it now, but I promise you will later.”
The mode of weeping, of crying, is different than the mode of fixing. It’s different than understanding. That’s why we often cry when we forgive. I’ve given up trying to make rhyme or reason or blame or who’s right or who’s wrong. The dualistic mind just goes back and forth seeking justification, seeking the right reason to hate or reject another person. We never find home base. Now I understand why Francis wept so much. When we go to the place of tears, and I don’t mean necessarily literally—I still don’t cry very easily myself, I’m sad to say—it’s an inner attitude where when I can’t fix it, when I can’t explain it, when I can’t control it, when I can’t even understand it, I can only forgive it. Let go of it, weep over it. It’s a different mode of being. [1]
After her father’s death, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captures the embodied experience of “the weeping mode,” in which no attempts to “fix” or “move on” will do:
Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language. Why are my sides so sore and achy? It’s from crying, I’m told. I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is: my tongue is unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth; on my chest, a heavy, awful weight; and inside my body, a sensation of eternal dissolving. My heart—my actual, physical heart, nothing figurative here—is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine. This is an affliction not merely of the spirit but of the body, of aches and lagging strength. Flesh, muscles, organs are all compromised. No physical position is comfortable. For weeks, my stomach is in turmoil, tense and tight with foreboding, the ever-present certainty that somebody else will die, that more will be lost. [2]
____________________________________________
Sarah Young Jesus Listens
Almighty God, Your Word tells me that You will fight for me; I need only to be still. Lord, You know how weary I am. I’ve been struggling just to keep my head above water, and my strength is running low. I need to stop trying so hard—and just let You fight for me. This is very difficult for me to do because my feelings tell me I must keep striving in order to survive. But I know You’re working on my behalf, and You are calling me to rest in You. So please help me to be still and know that You are God. Trying to calm my mind is even more challenging than quieting my body. In my battle to feel secure, I have relied too heavily on my own thinking. As I’ve struggled to feel in control, I’ve unwittingly elevated my mind to a position of self-reliance. Forgive me, Lord! I desperately need Your Spirit to work within me—controlling my mind more and more, soothing me from the inside out. While I spend time resting in the shadow of Your Almighty Presence, I’ll rejoice that You are fighting for me. In Your invincible Name, Jesus, Amen EXODUS 14:14; The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
PSALM 46:10 NKJV; 10 Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
ROMANS 8:6; The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
PSALM 91:1; He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Young, Sarah. Jesus Listens (p. 115). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
Click Image for John White's Original Vision For CO2's
