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A Time to Weep
Ben Sollee has said that his song It’s Not Impossible is about how he was trained not to cry by his American culture. The mantra, “boys don’t cry” is repeated throughout his song to emphasize this point. Sollee advocates the reversal of the indoctrination of this belief but admits that it takes time most people do not have. His description of the normative but dysfunctional male response to a need to cry includes great displays of anger and power. What seems to be a break up hurts him and makes him angry and fearful, and despite these powerful motivators he still lives by the moral that boys should not cry. Toward the end of the song, Sollee tosses out a few more ideas that contradict popular stereotypes – men can be beautiful, girls can be handsome, and children can be wise. It ends how it begins, with Sollee confessing the difficulty he has when trying to cry, stating that it is the hardest thing he has ever done.
Western culture propagates the unhealthy idea that the hard to handle emotions ought to be cast aside so that one can think clearly about a problem or circumstance. Logic and reason have come to be the antitheses to emotion, rather than be the helpful interpreter of human feelings. Crying is no longer understood to be appropriate in certain circumstances, but is seen in all settings as a sign of weakness and futility. Couple this with the western definition of a strong man as hardened and weathered but unbroken by the hardships in life, and the result is a prevailing sense that men, more than women, ought not to cry, weep, or dedicate any time to grief. (It does not help that women are seen as weaker, fragile, and nonsensical and therefore “allowed” the full range of emotions.) A grave injustice is done to men when they are only permitted violent and reckless behavior as a means of expressing anger, fear, or sorrow that should be articulated in a more straightforward way.
A Biblical response to human emotions neither negates nor purifies them without discretion. Rather, the Bible presents the idea of emotions that are validated and cared for as is appropriate, allowing the reasonableness of Gospel truth to infiltrate human emotions. Throughout scripture, there are many accounts of godly men and of God himself, the sole perfect man, crying because of the pain in their lives. The Psalms are filled with many an emotional cry to God, most of them from Kind David, a great warrior and a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:13-14). A shining example is given in the life of Joseph, whose story of betrayal and estrangement includes multiple reports of his weeping. He cries with wisdom, knowing when to trust his brothers with that kind of vulnerability and when to retreat to a safe place to express his pain. In a fallen world, God has given mankind emotions in order to grieve the pain that is so prevalent. In Isaiah 15, it is noted that great warriors mourn the lack of regard for human life, disproving the idea that soldiers are blockheaded, numb killing machines. Instead, the Israelite army shows depth in understanding while they are in combat. Ecclesiastes says that, “with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief” (1:18). Mordecai appropriately responds to the edict which legalized the genocide of the Israelites by engaging in outward representations of grief common to that culture, and weeping in the city with what Scripture calls, “a bitter cry.” Of course, the most excellent example of right emotions amongst men is that of Jesus Christ. In Him is found a man who weeps over Jerusalem’s failure to see their salvation and impending destruction, as well as one who weeps over the loss of a single human life (Luke 19, John 11). Many other times, he is driven to compassion and other such “feminine” emotions. He weeps publicly at the death of Lazarus, allowing his deep love for him to be shown, and scripture says that he was deeply moved at the sight of his close friends mourning Lazarus’ death.
Scripture not only shows examples of godly sorrow but that of unjustified emotions as well as emotions which lead to wrong actions. Both of these are a result of a fallen world; that is, the sin in and around us. In Jeremiah 30:15, God asks Zion why they would cry out against the destruction which they brought on themselves due to their own flagrant sin. God brought their strife upon them because of the great sin in their lives, so they ought to rather cry to God for mercy rather than justice. God’s mercy alone allows for release from the injustice inflicted upon them, and it is by no justification of their own. Here a principle of the tension of God’s grace is laid out more clearly, in that humans are never completely justified in their own sorrow, and yet God hears their cry and enacts both justice and mercy upon the guilty parties. Coming boldly before a throne of grace ought to include a growing awareness of this rule for the believer. Joseph’s brothers face harsh belittling and rejection from a father who favors and deeply loves only one of his sons. Rather than properly grieving the hurt which a sinful Jacob brings to all of the other sons, they turn their hurt into fuel for hatred and jealousy against Joseph. This leads them to terrible sins against Joseph and their father. Here we see the principle that not dealing appropriately with human pain is a recipe for sin and more pain.
Sollee’s song is full of a longing for culture to not have shaped him to think it unmanly to cry. He seems to submit to the idea unwillingly, not knowing exactly how to combat the idea that boy’s simply do not cry. Intuition tells us that there is something redeemable to crying even though it is essentially a painful experience, but oftentimes, we do not move beyond this vague notion, because, as Sollee points out, we do not have (or make) the time. Given a godly perspective on emotions, one is given the freedom to appreciate and express sorrow appropriately. Not only does Scripture combat the general notion that crying is feminine or weak, but it validates the injustice of a fallen world and the need for an emotional outlet in the midst of the pain that brings. A biblical perspective on pain incorporates wisdom with pain and permits morality to be objective within it. Believers have the ability to repent of wrong attitudes and actions that may contribute or be formed by their sorrow, and so morality is not left to the wayside as we find validation for our sorrow. Given this framework wherein sorrow can be valued but not take center stage, men are freed up to respond rightly to injustice, rather than indulge in immoral and violent actions, such as Sollee’s example of stealing a car and speeding. Ultimately, as men and women look to be more like the ultimate Human, they can both engage in the intensity of emotions that Christ felt here on earth without fear of betraying gender roles given by their surrounding culture.
