The right kind of tears

[Madame SidlerKeymaster]

“Her tears struck Janner as the right kind of tears.” (ch 15)

What do you think this means? Name all the kinds of tears you can think of. How can you tell if they’re the right kind or the wrong kind? What do you do when someone else is crying?

[Sara Cobbler]

This is what Janner also thinks. “She seemed older, no longer shocked that such a thing could happen in the world but heartbroken because it had.” Maybe that’s what Mr. Peterson meant by “the right kind of tears”? I think that the wrong kind of tears would be self pity, when the crying person is feeling sorry that such a thing could happen to themselves. Another form of the wrong kind of tears, might be crying to get attention.

[Lela]

Do you think it’s wrong to cry?
I know some people are ashamed of it, I am when I’m in public, but if God created tears, then is it wrong to not cry?
Or are tears because of sin?

[Madame SidlerKeymaster]

No, I don’t think it’s wrong at all. I think it’s often the most right response to the wrong that’s happening to and around us. The Maker cries. Jesus cries. The reason for tears might be traced back to sin—whether that’s because someone is behaving in a sinful way and causing hurt, or because the world is just broken and so things go wrongly. But tears are an appropriate response to that. The Bible does say that when the world is remade, death and sorrow and crying and pain will all pass away (Revelation 21:4). But maybe then we’ll cry for better reasons. Joy, perhaps, because everything is good again. 🙂

I feel embarrassed when I cry in public, too. I think sometimes it doesn’t feel safe to be vulnerable, like if someone sees me crying they’ll want to ask why and I won’t feel comfortable talking about it, or maybe if I try to explain they won’t understand or they’ll think I’m being too sensitive or that my feelings are silly. I think that fear of being weak and vulnerable in front of someone else goes back to the Garden, when Adam and Eve realized they were naked and were ashamed. They had always been naked and it was okay before, but once sin entered the world it felt like they couldn’t trust each other anymore. Sometimes it’s probably better to cry in a private place so you can just feel your feelings without worrying about explaining or being looked at or being misunderstood. (I don’t think it’s wrong to not cry, either. Crying is just feelings coming out. That can be really healthy. We need to feel our feelings and process the things that hurt.) But sometimes even better than crying in a safe place by yourself is to let someone see you crying, so they can enter into the pain with you and help. They might even cry too. Letting someone in is hard, but real community can happen that way.

Doug McKelvey, who wrote “The Places Beyond the Maps” in Wingfeather Tales, also writes prayers (called liturgies) in a book called Every Moment Holy. He has one called “A Liturgy for Those Who Weep Without Knowing Why,” and it is really, really good.

[Lela]

Maybe that’s why we can cry when where happy.
God could have created tears as an expression of joy, but when sin came into the world, it also became an expression of sadness, or pain.

[Author]

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