Weep with me

 

Jesus wept.

The shortest verse in the bible. A verse that has passed over into general vocabulary, where it can be used to denote frustration, sadness, disbelief, consternation… to name but a few.

I remember the first time I really began to meditate on that verse. Jesus wept. Jesus wept. To weep is such a human response, to some, tears can be almost repulsive, an obvious weakness, a useless response, an act that wastes our time and energy. But Jesus wept. The man that Christians call Saviour, wept.

To weep is not a weakness, but rather an obvious sign of how we love. I cry at most things. Not just the big obvious stuff of life and death, but the small minutiae of life. A beautifully written picture book about friendship, that two different people on two separate occasions have had to finish for me as I lost the ability to talk. An Ed Sheeran song that took me by surprise in spin class and made me think of home. The unfurling of House Stark banners at Winterfell. My children’s faces as they watched the start of ‘Raiders of the lost ark’ and the music kicked in. My children were very familiar with the term ‘happy cry’ from about the age of two.

Of course, some tears are unhappy. Tears of rage when I can’t find my keys. Tears of frustration when people patronise or talk down to me – I really struggle with that. Tears of sadness hearing about some broken family or hurting child. Tears at the news. Tears for the world. Weeping. My life is punctuated by tears, but before you suggest a good therapist, know that I am happy to be known as one of life’s weepers, because the truth of the matter is; tears are not useless.

A couple of weeks ago I heard a new song on you tube called ‘Weep with me’ by Rend Collective. The name seemed very apt as I did cry throughout that first listen, but it went deeper than that, as I listened to it again and again and began to get woken up in the middle of the night hearing those words repeated over and over again. Weep with me.

The bridge of that song has this lyric,

“Turn my lament, into a love song.

Turn my lament, into an anthem…

…What was true in the light, is still true in the dark

You’re good and you’re kind and you care for this heart.”

 

I have wept for this world so much. For the pain and despair and hatred that rips people apart. For the hatred that leads only to isolation and fear and loss. For the unkindness amongst the richest and most powerful working consistently to maintain their position at the expense of the many who have so much less. But when I weep, I know that I don’t do it alone. Jesus is weeping with me, for the hurting, the dispossessed, the outcast, the poor, the lost, the forgotten child, the grieving parents, the victim and even the perpetrators. He weeps with me.

When we cry, we are simply responding to what is inside ourselves. Love, compassion, kindness, justice. And when I can’t stop bombings or rescue children from a life they should never be living, I can weep, feel, pray and ask what I can do.

I can keep on loving, even when loving seems impossible and useless and unwanted. I can keep on remembering, not cast aside the sufferings of the many, but hold them within me and try in my own small way to shift the world more towards the good and kind side and away from the selfish and hate filled. I can look outside of myself, I can smile at someone on the fringes, I can forgive someone who has hurt me, without them apologising. I can love unconditionally. I can do all of this with him.

I can and will weep with him. I will trust that my tears will be turned into a love song. A song full of hope, joy, compassion, understanding and love. I can trust that there is power in that, that my tears, our tears, can become anthemic, symbolising what unites us and all that is good in the world and in us.

Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Humanist, Agnostic or Jedi, together we can weep and love and change the world. Every small act and choice we make has the most awesome potential. Our world needs change. We can change it, a little bit, every day. I will weep and I will love and I will try.

Who’s with me?