Ugly Cry - Advent 23
"Live to the point of tears." - Albert Camus
Ugly Cry
Paintings of newly born babies rarely reflect what they actually look like.
Admittingly, it takes a particular palette type to want a painting of an alien.
They emerge from months of being in a sac of fluid, pushed through the birth canal to emerge naked, slimy, with smooshed together faces.
And then they cry.
It’s not necessarily out of pain but more of their first breaths into this world calling to be reunited with their mother.
But it is an ugly cry.
With that birth canal face and vulnerable first time try with their voice box… it’s a scene often not gracing the halls of art galleries.
Christ emerged into the world with an ugly cry.
Now I know, through posting these meditations, that some traditions don’t believe Mary experienced any pain and Jesus didn’t cry when he was born… which I have to say, nodding to the title of this book, feels a bit dishonest. What’s the fear in experiencing discomfort? What’s the fear in crying? I guess the argument is that it becomes evidence against the miraculousness of Christs incarnation… that somehow discomfort would usurp the narrative of God’s goodness. But I believe the discomfort speaks directly to it.
“Live to the point of tears” said French philosopher Albert Camus. I have this hanging in my studio. It’s a reminder that the most memorable things of life are on the spectrum of tears of joy and tears of pain. It’s what you remember the most about your life. The moments that you were really there. That you were fully participating, versus the humdrum numbness of just passing the time.
Often when we protect ourselves from deep grief we also stifle the experience of deep joy. They are symbiotic in a way…. the tears of joy and grief…. one emerging from the other. Tears… no matter how uncomfortable….mean you care. They are the evidence that you are showing up to the invitation to be alive. We’re all skeptical of the tearless in heartfelt moments.
Look, I have faith in the Christ story because of the Resurrection, but I mostly have faith because of the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Because if there was a story about a Divine Creator incarnating as it’s own creation, partaking in what I means to be fully human, and in that story he didn’t eventually end up crying at his friends funeral - like you and I have done - then I wouldn’t believe it. It wouldn’t be an honest story. It would be a story of the Divine insulating itself from some of the hardest parts of being human…. The ugly cry parts.
I can’t begin to answer why a human life has so much suffering. That is a question women and men have ben contemplating since the beginning. But let us not forget the question of why a human life has so much unexpected joy. The kind that brings you to your knees in gratitude at the magic of it all.
One of our meditations this Advent is to contemplate the Divine participation in the ugly cry of being human.
Embedded in the Trinity is the memories of the ugly cry…
the memories of the pain and the joy of being human. All the conversations of a human life are known intimately by the Almighty. Because of this, endless grace, comfort, and solidarity are offered when you find yourself nakedly vulnerable, slimy with flowing mucus, and tear lined puffy faced with the evidence of fully participating in a human life.
May you live to the point of tears.
These meditations are a freely given visual offering for this Advent season.
Thank you for following along.
Most of them originated from my book Honest Advent….
Which is available where all books are sold.
