Why Did I Weep?

I counted 12 Kleenex in the trash next to the desk when I had finished writing this. Hope it connects with a tender place inside of you, too….

We do a language exchange with a young Dutch woman named Hilde on Monday mornings. She wants to get better in English and we need all the help we can get in Dutch. Hilde especially needs help with reading and writing English and we decided to read a book together. So, I scanned my shelves. One of the hardest things about moving was choosing which books to bring. Books weigh a lot, and I had way too many of them. So I limited myself. 26 books by Frederick Buechner made it, of course, and Patrick O’Brian’s 20 volume Aubrey/Maturin series. Dale Bruner’s glorious two volume Matthew commentary also came, some books are worth so much more than their weight. I also decided to bring the five books Max DePree has published, and my eyes lit on his gem, “Dear Zoe.” The book is a collection of letters Max wrote to his granddaughter who was born at 24 weeks. Hilde is a new mother, and I thought Max’s book would do the job perfectly. It has. Hilde can’t wait to find out more about Zoe every week.

So this week while we were reading, I started crying. It is a beautiful, heart touching story, but I’ve read it a number of times without crying before. I’ve been asking myself, “Why did I weep this time?”

I posted a little hint of this in September in what I wrote the day after my birthday. I’ve been feeling the gulf of separation (maybe that should be the new name of the Atlantic Ocean) between most of the people who have filled my life and where I am today. I am sure I am now feeling culture shock, which might be best defined as the realization you aren’t on vacation anymore. I also mentioned that I reconnected with long-lost friends, and that’s caused me to be doing a lot of reflection on my life of late. I think the weight of all those things is why the combination of Max’s tender words and tough questions he was asking God about his granddaughter made me cry. He asked God, “Why do I have to start all over at 64?” and I feel the same question minus 13 years. And then there is Max himself. He’s been a special friend and mentor to me for over 20 years. I was dumbfounded when the CEO of one of West Michigan’s largest companies invited me to have lunch with him because he wanted to get to know me better. Wasn’t that supposed to happen the other way around? I miss being able to call him up and drive to Holland to spend time with him. He lives in the wrong Holland! Max personifies wisdom, grace, eloquence and elegance. In his book “Leadership is An Art” he has a chapter called “Why Should I Weep?” My question is a variation on that theme.

I think I should cry more. One of my favorite stories about Frederick Buechner comes from Dale Brown, who hosted FB in his home many years ago for a speech at Calvin College. Dale said he got up early in the morning and heard the television. He went downstairs and there was Frederick Buechner, sitting in front of Dale’s TV set, crying. The night before, while Buechner had given his speech at Calvin, the Rodney King-inspired riots in Los Angeles had broken out. Buechner was watching the news and crying. I want to be like that – I want to be soft enough so that the things that break God’s heart also break mine.

What makes you weep?

I’ve thought of few more things that always move me:

• When Amanda and Jesse were little sometimes I would stand in the hall outside their rooms and look at them asleep and my throat would catch and a tear come to my eye. They were so beautiful and innocent.
• When I read the book “Charlotte’s Web” to Amanda I couldn’t read anymore after Charlotte died and Wilbur the pig remembered her by saying, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” That’s all I ever wanted to be, too.
• Three movies – “The Wizard of Oz,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “Forrest Gump.” With Oz it’s when Dorothy keeps saying, “There’s no place like home.” And she was an orphan, folks! The longing for home is one of strongest pulls inside of us, and we are all on some sort of Oz-like quest, just trying to get back where we belong. With “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it is when Jimmy Stewart sees what life would have been like if he had not been there, and through his eyes we see the absolute goodness of one man’s life. Plus Jimmy Stewart was such a great actor and the angst and terror in his voice and face are extremely powerful. Most of the time when that movie’s on I can’t even bear to watch it, because I know it will tear me up. With “Forrest Gump” it is the last scene where Forrest puts little Forrest on the bus. Again it is innocence and beauty and the goodness of life that gets me.
• When I preached at my grandmother’s funeral and I told of my hope that in heaven my grandmother would be united with her own mother, who had died when my grandmother was four or five years old. Her father abandoned her then, leaving her to be raised by her grandparents, way up at the top of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I was fine when I wrote the lines, but found I couldn’t say them out loud very well.

How about you? What makes you weep?