When do we cry?

Enjoy blogging. Some blogs are big into "navel gazing." I do that sometimes. And here goes one of those posts.

I'm thinking about this because I heard Dennis Prager talk about it briefly on his radio show. He noticed that as he got older, he cried less for his own pains than for the pains of others. He also found that he would be moved by seeing goodness.

Indeed, I find myself crying for those in my life who I know who suffer for some reason. Yes, sometimes I cry about my own hurts but not nearly as often for the hurt of others in my life. Sometimes, I don't even know the person all that well but I feel, it is not fair, it shouldn't be that way and so I cry.

Sometimes I do know the person very well and have strong emotional attachment to him or her. When I hear of a friend's burden, I feel sad that they have to bear it. I want to help them bear it. I wish I could snap my fingers and make it go away but I can't. I wish the burden would befall me rather than on my friend but that can't happen. And so I cry.

I thought his other observation was correct too. When I think of the movie Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, why is it so emotionally powerful? It is about good people standing up against the evil in their mythical world. In the human heart there is a longing for good to win. There is a sense that things are NOT the way they ought to be. And so when we see GOOD win, we are moved. In my heart, I hope that when it comes time to choose what is right and good, that I would do so even if the cost of doing so is very high.

And thus the most powerful combination that moves me is when there is great suffering and great good at the same time. When I hear a story of parents loving a child with physical or mental disabilities I feel moved: one for the sadness of the circumstances but also the amazing love of that parent who sacrifices so much.

If you have a Bible nearby, whether you read it all the time or it is dusty, take a look at John 11:35, the shortest verse in the Good Book:

Jesus wept.