Tears versus Jeers

Crowded Mass this morning at St. John Neumann's in Miami - one of several first communion celebrations.

I delightedly watched the sweet eight-year-olds - boys in white ties/shirts, girls in their dresses and veils - carefully processing down the aisle. Clearly, a practiced maneuver. Each pair started after the other was half way down the aisle, bowed at the altar, then separated and walked into a pew row. Anxiously, the teacher observed from the side, and was probably unaware that as each pair walked, then bowed, she was giving empathetic slight bow as well.

Half way through the Mass, a small child hurt herself and began to wail. Mom scooped her up and headed mom-speed (like the wind!) to the back exit and into the cry room. The girl had good lungs. Despite the walls and glass, a faint wail could be heard for the next few minutes. Then quiet. Eventually, mom and child returned to Mass, all smiles.

I started wondering when it was in our emotional development that we stopped crying when we hurt and started cursing instead. As adults, we don't like feeling sad or hurt; it leaves us naked and vulnerable. We chose to get mad - a lot! In retaliation, we shove, complain, swear, cast aspersions, and recklessly gossip .

The world is teeming with animosity. We refuse to let our guard down and be exposed and intimate and loved (or fear the risk of acting in emotionally intimate and loving ways) and we have to cope in some way. It is SO much easier to be angry than hurt or embarressed or betrayed.

What a different world it would be if we retained our three year old willingness just to sit down and wail. We wouldn't hurt others, we wouldn't spread the pain - friendly fellow adults would gather around and pat our backs, offer a drink, a hanky, maybe even a "kiss and make it better".

A person would have time to calm down, blow the nose, get a hug, fix the makeup and get back to the day. Hurt dissipated.

Walking the dog one evening in Clearwater, we passed a man complaining about an incident while grilling dinner. Every other word was the f-word. He used it as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and helping verb. He was SO angry, and his diatribe did not seem to relieve his pain. Honestly, he was winding up, rather than down.

I wonder if he would have felt better weeping into his beer, rather than screaming at and into the bottle?

Mockingbirds were serenading the cool sunset, but the f-word man got none of that and all of bitterness.

I'm going to try kleenex over cursing - so, if you catch me weeping in the grocery or as I drive on the lunatic streets of Miami - smile, and bless my efforts for a peaceful pre-school perspective on life, love and loss!