When my boys began reaching high school one by one, I found myself carrying emotions in a different way. It may have been that I knew our time with them at home was closing and things were changing. I would cry at their performances (not because they did bad, but because I was just moved by what I watched them do). Graduations? A hot mess.

At some point in there I mentioned to one of the high school principals how easy tears came and I would probably have that for the next few years until our youngest one graduated. The principal said, “You will probably have tears close the rest of your life.”

She was right. And for more reasons than I knew at the time.

Richard Rohr has a new book called The Tears of the Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage. Just reading the title moved me deeply. It has not disappointed in the early chapters.

Rohr’s book is about the prophetic. It is about understanding our emotions in our response to things around us, but then to move to a place where we are sensing what God is thinking and doing in these situations. The prophets were moved and early in their writings they express outrage. But something happens as they keep writing. Their perspective shifts and somewhere in the process the shouting turns to weeping. They are sensing the heart of God… his brokenness… and how God longs to bring Israel home to himself.

So much of the Old Testament “prophecy” isn’t about anger or rage as much as it has the language of a jilted lover. It’s heartbreaking!

And this is the place where I find myself these days. The tears I hold aren’t just for my family. The outrage I feel over the conservative American church has moved into grief. Tears are always near.

Tears haven’t really left me since my sons graduated high school. They remind me of something deep that goes on in my own spirit… but they are also reminders that God is feeling something as well. I want him to move me with what moves him… and that’s not a safe prayer.

So, I do indeed rage at times over how the conservative American church has lost its way. I share my disappointments… and they are expressions of my tears. To hold these tears is experience more than “rage” or “anger” over what is going on. The tears I hold remind me that I am present with Christ, and he with me.

I have moved beyond the dualistic thinking of our day. I reject the “either/or” scenarios of ideologies and political parties. But the way I have found is more difficult. It has pain. It has tears.

And with those tears I have found the presence of Christ… so I wouldn’t trade these tears for anything else. And I certainly wouldn’t go back to the old way of thinking.