From: mls@cbnewsm.att.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: tear, idle tears
Date: 13 Apr 92 06:02:42 GMT
Organization: AT&T

It is Palm Sunday, and I am calling to mind a recent thread about
listening dry-eyed to the reading of the Passion.  I had to go into
work, to do "sanity testing" on a checkpoint version of our product
-- and I came around the block at just the time the procession was
moving from the Seminary here to the church nearby, with the clergy
doing traffic-cop duty.  And the ghastly emotional gamut of this day
struck me even more forcefully than usual, as I was sitting behind
the wheel of a car watching palm-carrying fellow-parishioners go on
to hear (and participate, as the mob, in) the passion reading, after
the emotional high of celebrating our Lord as the triumphant King.

I am very susceptible to plays on my emotions.  That is one reason
I do not watch televison.  I do not mind my emotions being engaged
by Shakespeare, or Aeschylus, or the gospel writers -- but I REALLY
resent the sordid manipulations of TV writers and their ilk.  Yes,
I will go through the emotional changes they want to impose on me --
but I will also watch and judge the intent of their manipulations,
and I will be more than angry if I am made to confront the pain of
so many of my fellows in order to sell soap.

I do not, ordinarily, read the Passion accounts *except* as part of
the liturgical cycle.  So I don't have much sense of whether or not
I would react to it the same way "in isolation" as I do in church.
There, it is almost unbearable.  And only the thought of next week
MAKES it tolerable.  I spent some years as organist at a small church
in Berkeley -- and this period was for me the crux of the year.  I was
able to "make public" my deepest feelings, in playing _O Haupt voll
Blut und Wunden_ (among several others almost as strong) -- all the
while with tears almost blinding me and making each year a challenge
to get through without losing it.  But I have NEVER in my life been
able to sing the damned hymn.  It's terribly unprofessional, but I
simply choke.  I sit at my terminal this evening, listening to Bach's
Matthew Passion, and the attempt to think about this as I write makes
me almost sick with grief.

My emotionalism and susceptibility don't make me particularly "proud"
-- they are practically a stereotype of "unmasculine" reactions that
might be expected from a gay Christian. But neither am I embarrassed
by them, at this stage (and as long as I do not allow my emotions to
be pandered to by soap-sellers I don't think I have much to apologize
for in this).  It is certainly the furthest thing from my intent to
see in this emotionalism any "superiority" over others -- I am rather
suspicious of piety in general, and self-indulgent sorts especially.

Yet today we will hear Christ cry on the cross, "My God, why hast
thou forsaken me?"  And I, at least, will weep, knowing that if I
had been in the congregation today, I would have called "Crucify him!"
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."