Daily Wisdom 07-30-2003 Joy and Sorrow

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Joy and Sorrow

When Funny Cide lost the Belmont Stakes race in early June in his attempt to be the first horse to win the triple-crown in 25 years, the jockey's small son was shown bursting into prompt and understandable tears.Even though I was also secretly hoping for this darkhorse to be the winner, I was not at all inclined to cry over the loss. And I thought about the fact that if Funny Cide had won, I might have cried.

What makes us cry when we are happy? One of the unexpected learnings for me in being a parent has been discovering how we develop the ability or tendency to cry out of happiness. I would never have thought about this if I hadn't observed it in my children.

My kids could never figure me out: I remember them staring at me if I got weepy in church at a joyful song or at a happy ending in a movie: "Mom, you're crying!" one was sure to exclaim and I would quickly try to shush them. I would tell them I was crying because I was happy, which confused them even more: as a child, you cry if you are sad, hurt, lonely or upset, but when you are happy?

Somewhere during the late teenage years (but later than I would have expected) children seem to finally develop this ability or inclination to cry when they are happy.

At the memorial service for an 83-year-old man at our church my thoughts on what makes people cry when sad or happy suddenly clicked. One of the man's grandchildren read from "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran, about the nature of joy and sorrow. I've heard or read this many times before, but sometimes things click in a new way: "Your joy is your sorry unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. ... The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. ...When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." The prophet concludes by saying joy and sorrow are inseparable.

If that is true, I guess children not being able to cry happy tears is a good thing-because it shows they have been protected enough or lucky enough to be spared deep and great sadness in their youth. It is only as we have experienced pain, grief and setback that we then better know the blessing of health and wellness, healing, and overcoming problems. Part of maturation involves experiencing enough of life that we have gone through tough times, death of a loved one, illness, injury, hospitalizations. We have either personally or vicariously suffered through dreadful events: murder, kidnapping, and so can feel joy and tears of empathy when there are happy endings to terrible stories.

Thus deep happiness creates the joy that then prompts tears of sorrow if and when the happiness is taken away. So even if we must shed tears in mourning and grief, deep down we can know that we feel grieved because we have also experienced the kind of love and relationship that gave us joy.

Joy and sorrow: opposite sides of the same coin. Knowing that we can't have one without the other helps to heal the grief and sorrow.

Contributed by Melodie Davis from her weekly columnANOTHER WAY (http://www.thirdway.com/aw/).For information on using Another Way in a local newspaper, contact:ANOTHER WAY, 1251 Virginia Ave., Harrisonburg, VA 22801-2497; or call1-800-999-3534; fax at 540-434-5556; or email me at:Melodie@mennomedia.org