from my letter portion of our 2020 christmas card…
WHO LOVES, WHO CRIES, WHO WRITES OUR STORY: lea’s letter for 2020
my 2019 word of the year was LACE. i chose a word about keeping things together, adding an ingredient, a hard hit, and a painstaking and time-consuming production. hmmm… perhaps it was a bit too on-brand for this year. it was a year that LACED us in very UNPRECEDENTED ways… ugh.
maybe i should have wished for a year reminiscent of a simpler time. a time to cook and bake new recipes (or banana bread). a season of rediscovering hobbies like sewing, gardening, and spending time outdoors, cycling, camping, kayaking, and taking walks. being able to wear yoga pants anytime, reading more, playing board games, and solving jigsaw puzzles. a year where people took time to adopt a pet, create a squirrel obstacle course, discover indie films, and rewatch old favorites. a time of using technology to connect with family, invest in education and medical advice, visit museums, and attend concerts, musicals, and even worship services, all virtually. a time when nurses, doctors, teachers, food servers, retail assistants were genuinely appreciated for the help they provide. a moment to think about all the things we take for granted, friends, family, our neighbors, and the amazingness of our diversity.
however, this year does not seem simple, and 2020 almost ended the marshall family christmas card (which did seem slightly fitting.) in a year where we could not get together physically, we could not get together ideologically either. adam’s idea of “i’ll have a zoom christmas without you” album with a song list meant to be a light-hearted remembrance of the challenges COVID brought this year was, like so much this year, fraught with concern that it would be insensitive to some who were hit hardest by 2020. we know many recipients of this card have had a year that has been extremely difficult.
we are intensely aware that card will be held by those struggling with financial stability. many of you yearn for time with extended family but may not feel safe being with them right now. there are many who fear loss of personal freedoms during this season. those who may have lost faith in our fellow man or faith in anything Good at all. i know there are those who mourn the loss of grandparents, parents, children, siblings, spouses, &/or friends this year. we all are struggling to find hope for the future in a time when hope seems as limited as toilet paper was in 2020. while we may not know all that this year brought to you, know that we send this card out with prayers for you and your family. each recipient of this card is precious to us. and to this world.
in all my 2020 time for reading, i ran smack dab into my word(s) for this year. and since there was SO MUCH EXTRA READING TIME, it got pretty esoteric this year. i hope you brushed up on your roman classics. let’s get started...
i have chosen the latin words LACRIMAE RERUM for this year. they come from the first book of virgil’s aeneid. perfect, right? i need not explain a thing. you clearly see the connection. my job here is done. HA. well, i had to look up this phrase when i ran across it. seems these words, & their two contradictory interpretations, continue to fascinate readers and thinkers through the ages.
these words show up when the trojan hero, aeneas, observes a mural showing the battle of troy. viewing the depiction of his ancestors and compatriots struggling and losing their lives in the legendary trojan war, aeneas muses, “sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangent.” this is translated into “there are tears of/for things, and mortal matters touch the mind.”
scholars of the aeneid provide two possible translations for the phrase: “tears FOR things” or “tears OF things.” they like to champion one OR the other for their translation. but we all know how much i love TWO meanings for one thing. just another appearance of my beloved “power of &". i think both translations are comprehensive & comforting for this confusing year. i also think they both exist together for this (and every) difficult season.
LACRIMAE RERUM: tears FOR things. there have been tears for things this year. so. many. tears. adam’s powerhouse of a mother went Home to be with the Lord this summer. she had been in failing health for a few months. we were able to spend a lovely weekend with her shortly before she left this world. but like so many of you, covid has kept us at a distance from many of our loved ones. my year long sinus issues (& a continuous hacking cough) have made me terrible company and unwelcome anywhere in public. don’t ask abut the time i cleared out an entire coffee shop with one coughing spell. teaching high school hybrid style & feeling so unsuccessful at that herculean task has brought more tears. the lack of empathy i see in our country is sorrowful &shameful & definitely produce weeping and grieving.
& not just the events around me produce tears. the daily egregious events in my own soul are also shocking (not sure why after over 50 years of living with my self.) every year, there seem to be tears FOR more and more things. i cry easier and more often. am i alone in genuinely thinking by the time i was in my 50’s i would have this life thing figured out? that i would be killing the game? out here slaying it all with wisdom and grace? living my best life?
well, despite how together i may look on social media (or in this card), rumors of my brilliance/best life/brightest days are woefully exaggerated. every year i come face to face with more of my own frailty, false idols, and failures. these are catching up with me, overtaking me, & there are tears FOR these regrets & recriminations. this is a time of LACRIMAE RERUM: tears FOR things.
the second translation is LACRIMAE RERUM: tears OF things. this is the beautiful and hopeful part (glad you made it through that first downer section.) this contains the idea of “things” that weep with us. a vision of invisible entities who also weep for the deep sorrows in this life. for me, this is the amazing idea of a God who collects the tears we shed. One who holds each & every tear i shed as worthy of being seen, saved, & storied.
psalm 56:8
You’ve kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights,
Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.
i see this God who values tears all through Scripture. as hagar sobbed in the wilderness of beersheba, God drew near (genesis 21). when hannah wept bitterly outside the temple, God noticed and remembered (1 samuel 1). poetic david became weary with moaning, but God didn’t become weary with listening (literally all of psalms. talk about some tears for things.)
i read about a God who says to king hezekiah, “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears” (2 kings 20:5). a God who tells us, “blessed are you who weep now” (luke 6:21). i believe He sees and holds in His nail-scarred Hands every tear we shed as we slog through the sharp ruins of our broken world.
He watched a widow weep over her son’s dead body, “He had compassion on her” (luke 7:13). mary & martha fall apart at Jesus’s feet over the death of a brother, and “Jesus wept” (john 11:25) for them and for all of us who are often confused by where He is or why He tarries in our grief. the same Jesus who raises the dead stops to linger with us in our sorrow. showing me how every tear shed in faith, shattered but trusting, weary but watchful, has this eternal hope “the Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (palm 34:18)
Jesus told his disciples, “truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (john 16:20). He was known as the “man of sorrows’ (isaiah 53:3). He understands our moments, seasons, or lifetimes of sadness.
every tear you and i shed is preparing “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). every drop of agony and heartache falls and sinks into the ground like a seed, waiting to sprout into a garden of laughter. but sometimes this joy is slow to grow. painstakingly slow. painfully slow.
there is a beautiful andrew peterson song i discovered this year of tears.
it is aptly named “After the Last Tear Falls”…
“in the end, . . .
we’ll see how the tears that have fallen were caught in the palms
of the Giver of love and the Lover of all.
and we’ll look back on these tears as old tales.
’cause after the last tear falls, there is love..”
our tears will one day be tales. they will be a part of my Story and yours. joy will come in the morning when God turns this valley of tears into a city of everlasting joy. after the mourning, we are promised a joyful Morning. One Day, God himself will stoop down to each of his grieving children, and He will dry up tears forever. may you rest in this for 2020 and into this new year…
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,
and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things, have passed away.
(revelation 21:4)
and know in all of our Stories (as tolkien wrote in The Return of the King)
“everything sad
is going to come untrue.”
until that Glorious Day, LACRIMAE RERUM…