"Eye Drips"

Sometimes tears mysteriously fill the gap when words fail us.  These “eye drips,” as a friend’s child says, emanate from a point of intersection between body and soul.  They are spontaneous and puzzling, potentially the result of confronting heightened goodness or difficulty, or some intimate emotion too deep for words.  They can be physical and exterior, but also symbolic and spiritual.

Rather than an embarrassment or sign of weakness, spiritual tears are evidence of important transition, of passing from familiarity to a new reality.  Such tears, during a moment of inner birthing, are reminiscent of that cry-piercing moment of physical birth, except profound in a different way.

This morning, peacefulness pervaded our little house. I was alone with the computer, ironing wrinkled shirts and slacks while listening to voices singing haunting liturgical hymns originating from ancient Christianity.  These songs have been chanted for hundreds of years, inspiring countless Christ-followers in ways largely lost to contemporary worship methods.  As steam spit from the iron and I smoothed a shirt’s warm lapel, something hard within me cracked open like an eggshell.  There were no words to explain it.

However, tears bore evidence to ongoing interior remodeling, a process that has become more intense in recent years and months.  Unexpected, gentle “eye drips” confirmed that significant changes are in progress – a different sort of quickening.  God is speaking to my soul uniquely these days, and I am expanding, shifting, and healing at the core, even in casual, ordinary moments over the ironing board.