When was the last time you cried?

Song of the Moment: Still by Ben Folds

This will be as candid and digressive as it can get. Be forewarned.

When the family trooped to Greenbelt this afternoon to hear mass, all that I had in my mind was this: I am not in the mood. I was feeling extra extra shitty, primarily because it was the first day of my week's delayed period --- that meant my hormones were shooting off the roof and the cramps were extra painful. My monthly bane is extra belligerent (yes, there's a little massacre going on inside me) every time I lose the regularity of its arrival. This happens every 3 months or so, depending on the amount of stress I experience --- and I don't enjoy it at all because it has reached points when I've become magnetized to the bed in one position and one position alone. You boys out there have it easy sometimes.

Anyway, that's not the story. Sitting down on the pew was more painful and energy-absorbing than standing by the aisles, so I chose the latter. It was still excruciating, while I held on to the ledge like I'm about fall to the floor. I must have taken this position during normal mass days in the past because no one seemed to have noticed my agony. It didn't help that the place I was standing in smelled like pond water. Argh. I felt the urge to leave and walk around or get something to drink just to distract me. I was doing mental plots, carefully selecting which part of the mass I should use as a cue to slip out. Something kept me glued to my place.

Fr. Jun Sescon, one of the family's favorite priests, took the microphone when it was time for the homily. Again, I wanted to leave, but I just stood there. It turns out, his homily was meant for me, no matter how painful it was to stand around there and take it in. Thank you, God, for pinning me down like that so I'd stay put like a behaved 'lil girl.

(This is where I start talking about what I was meant to talk about. See? Such a long introduction.)

Fr. Jun started by relating Lazarus' resurrection to talks about physical death vis-a-vis breathing people who are actually dead. That would have made an excellent focal point too, but instead he maneuvered his way cleverly towards zeroing in on one phrase from the Gospel (said to be the shortest sentence in the Bible): Jesus wept. Jesus wept for the death of his friend, Lazarus. Anyway, before I sound like I'm writing an exegesis, the gist of his homily was in fact this: You can tell a person's character by his tears (or by the lack of tears). These words are very very true.

I particularly took to heart his suggestion on paying attention to what makes one cry ---most especially, paying special attention to UNEXPECTED tears. Was it when you watched a movie and the character goes, "Follow your heart"? Was it when you were walking across a park and you bump into a 70-something couple, holding hands? Was it when you heard about another person's success? Or was it when that cheesy song started playing on the radio? He suggests that when we see something seemingly insignificant and suddenly breaks into tears by its sheer experience, then that moment will genuinely determine who we are at present, where we're coming from and where we are supposed to be headed. Your unexpected tears, a moment of unintentional weakness and awakening of your desires, will surface what truly matters to you, what will make you happy or sad, and what will propel your sensibilities towards fulfilling your purpose in this world. In the same way that the act of crying physically cleanses your eyes and helps you breathe better by allowing for a faster pumping of the blood in and out of your heart, the act of crying and mourning will cleanse your perspective and help you pump passion back into your life, before you lose life entirely and wake up a dead person every day.

His homily hit me so hard because the other night, I was, in fact, crying unexpectedly. And I was really crying at 2AM, letting everything out of my system --- stuff that I apparently had bottled up inside me for quite a while now, without my knowledge. And I actually felt revived the morning after. I felt a bit weak from the lack of sleep, but my focus and resolve was very sharp. I felt slightly rebellious but that was the point of the unexpected tears --- for one to manifest what is missing in his life, to unblock the day-to-day routine and to awaken from a slumber of commonstance.

In the other end of the spectrum, we have people who no longer know how to cry. They are the people who have become stoics and are indifferent to the human experience. I can cite one very popular person who doesn't know how to cry.. my friends and I were just talking about that person in a funny yet disturbing anecdote last night. Anyway, this kind of person is dangerous because he/she has lost the ability to be moved and that will allow him/her to go about life without regard for goodness and justice. They are like zombies who will walk the earth but not feel its pulse nor listen to its people's calls.

So, how about you? When was the last time you truly cried? When was the last time you allowed yourself to be vulnerable and be reborn again? It is not a manifestation of weakness when someone cries; instead, it is a grand show of humanity and life.