Big boys don’t cry

Allowing myself to be here

I was deeply challenged by a passing comment that Heather Bradbury made at a Poatina morning tea this week. She also wrote about it on her blog which you will find here.

We have two very special people visiting Poatina this week. They are aboriginal artists from Uluru.

Soon after they arrived they sat Heather down and asked her to tell them the story of Aboriginals in Tasmania. One of them asked Heather to get some tissues because it was a sad story and she was going to cry.

When I first heard Heather say this, and talked about how sad it was to tell them about the story, I was a bit stunned. I have been back and forth from Tasmania all my life and it would never have occurred to me to be even mildly upset about something that happened 100 years ago.

As I let Heather’s words sit I found myself deeply challenged.

One of the deepest challenges I have is being pre-occupied. I am often so consumed with the unresolved things in my life that I don’t find it easy to deeply engage with my family, let alone the history of any place I find myself in.

Part of that for me has been a bit of a coping thing that I developed in childhood. I remember being an emotional kid who cried a lot, laughed a lot and frequently got angry. As I got older I learned to control my emotions, and I wonder if in doing so I lost something important.

One of my favourite passages in the bible contains the bible’s shortest verse.

There is a moment where Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after the death of their brother, and despite the fact he has a pretty good answer to the object of their grief, he doesn’t quickly “fix them up”, but allows himself to engage with the moment and the emotions his friends were feeling:

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

³⁵Jesus wept. (John 11)

Perhaps I have something to learn from these indigenous sisters who allow themselves to be affected by the place they visit.

Unlearning years of emotional habits are not easy, and honestly I’m not sure how much I can change, but Rene and Janet are models of a life that I would love more of.

I have a sense that Jesus is beckoning me beyond my pre-occupation into deeply experiencing the present.