I’ve been crying a lot lately. I think my tears come in seasons, but it’s almost like I cycle through such a profusion of seasons that by the time the tears come, I have forgotten that crying is something I do. I’m not a crier. Still, my tears do not feel unwelcome. They are quite at home to run down my cheeks and through my heart, and I am quite filled by the company they have given me.
Coming home from Oregon has been a process – one that had no set beginning and will have no end. It is part of the long thread of my story and I am glad for the color and richness it has added. For the first few days I didn’t know how to navigate the way that I clashed with people here. On the flight home I heard business people talk passionately about the economic growth potential of expensive agricultural technology and then chuckle over the absurdity of small farmers. During a layover I chatted with a woman who was quite concerned over her 4 year old son’s interest in the Disney Princess toy section at Target. I had to bite my tongue more than a few times.
Shortly after getting home, I got into an argument with my mom about my unshaven legs. I didn’t want to shave them. Everyone I lived with in Oregon loved me really well and the hair on my legs did not determine the extent of their love. There was something wonderful and right in moments when my friends touched my legs absent-mindedly without a second thought or a trace of disgust, while we lay in groups, sprawled on the floor, talking about anything and everything under the sun. I felt beautiful because I knew that whatever they were loving about me and whatever love they were loving me with must be curiously authentic. At any rate, I don’t particularly enjoy shaving, and thought that if I was feeling comfortable enough with myself to choose not to, that maybe my unshaven legs could say something to the world about beauty and love. My mom challenged me to consider the idea that people might not ever hear what my legs are saying over their own voices of judgment. Though I was frustrated with my mom for not taking my side, I know she was trying to speak out of love, not wanting me to sacrifice important relationships just to make some hippie statement. Nonetheless, cue my first tears.
A few days later, I had a conversation with my dad about climate change. A tear came when I didn’t feel heard at all, or like he considered me a source he could learn from. (For the record, my parents are fantastic human beings and I am not trying to vent or vilify them. Sometimes they don’t understand my heart, but perhaps I should give them grace, because fantastic or not, they are indeed human beings, and being one myself, wish for grace on the many occasions I do not take the time to understand their hearts.)
More tears came a couple nights ago when I had a typical college-kid freak out moment because I don’t know what to do with my life. The problem is more that I know what I want to do with my life (love people fiercely, encourage others to love each other fiercely, and to teach people how to do that well and in a committed community), but I don’t know how to turn it into a practical, money-making job, and moreover, I don’t really want to. I just want to do it and have someone share their roof and their meals with me, trusting that I’m busting my ass at something worthwhile.
Tonight were the most recent tears. We watched The Secret Life of Bees together. I hadn’t seen it in so long that I forgot so much of the plot it was almost like watching it for the first time (I love when that happens!). It made me feel a lot of things, but most bitingly I felt deep sadness and hurt for the absence of compassionate love the protagonist had experienced in her life. This was complimented by an insatiable longing deep inside me for the messy, but nourishing love she was discovering as the movie unfolded. The movie made me cry three different times. Three times! And I hardly ever cry during movies.
So. Lots of tears.
A week or so before leaving Oregon, we were riding down the mountain into town and I proclaimed to my friends in the back of the bus how much I loved bosoms. “Big cushy ones,” I said. “There is almost nothing better than being pressed into one with loving arms that are wrapped around you, drawing you in. It’s so comforting.”
If I didn’t lose all credibility during the hairy legs part, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re raising your eyebrows at your computer screen thinking ‘this girl is completely mental.’ And I probably am. But I stand my ground, just like I did when my friends gave me strange looks on the bus. I think the image of a voluptuous mother openly receiving her child into her is one of the most wonderful things I can think of. And I think bosoms like that have something to do with all of the tears I’ve been shedding lately.
The other day I was mulling over the tears I’ve had since I’ve been home, and I came to the realization that all my tears have been on account of love.
The tears from the leg-shaving night came because I was sad that the world refused to know and love me unless my legs looked a certain way. They came because I was sad for all the people that would judge me because they themselves hadn’t experienced enough boundless love to give it without boundaries to others.
The tears from my conversation with my dad came because I feel most loved when I feel heard and understood, and I wasn’t feeling heard and understood, so I was not feeling the love that I wanted from my father.
The tears from my conversation with my dad came because I feel most loved when I feel heard and understood, and I wasn’t feeling heard and understood, so I was not feeling the love that I wanted from my father.
The tears from the college-kid spaz attack were because I want so desperately for every single person in the world to know how valuable they are. I don’t want to sit behind a desk getting paid to love them, I don’t want to get a Masters Degree to help me do it better, and I don’t want to waste time doing menial jobs just to make money. I know there is value in counseling, in grad school, and in the everyday ins and outs of working within an institution. But I just feel… so strongly... that I want nothing more in my life than to love as many people as I possibly can in such a way that they know they are worth being loved. I feel like I will burst if I can’t do that with my whole being and my whole life.
The tears from the movie tonight just reiterated that. I saw brokenness because something vital was missing and I saw healing because that same thing was found and experienced and known.
Love is such a tricky word, because it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I really think the desire for it is what we all dance our lives around. I think in the end, we all desire a bosom – a physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual embrace… a closeness, or presence, from another… one that knows our worth and doesn’t ever question our inherent belovedness. We all want to be beheld (or just held) with compassion and curiosity.
In all my heretical liberal hippie thought, I truly believe that God is the biggest voluptuous bosom we can find. And what I want more than anything is for everyone to find their home in it.
Minus the talk about bosoms, I talked to one of my professors in Oregon about this desire pretty frequently. At the end of our last conversation, he called me an evangelist. I told him I didn’t really know how I felt about that. It also surprised me, considering he had just walked through a season of frustration with me in which I declared that I wanted nothing to do with God if God wasn’t for everyone, whether they chose God or not. In fact, that’s not a phase. I hold to that. But at my core, I also hold to a God that is very alive and has a nature that is entirely (dare I say it?) incapable of not accepting everyone. And this God has enough bosom to go around. I suppose wanting everyone to be held in it makes me an evangelist. Just a very peculiar one.
All that being said, this was an obnoxiously long post. Sorry about that. But I sincerely hope for you that you find some kind of bosom to rest in, whether metaphorical or literal. And I am cringing to write this so disconnectedly over a blog post, but I’m going to do it anyway because apparently I’m an evangelist and can’t help it: Know you are worth being loved.
