You can quiz my wife, my children and my friends. They will tell you that I am not a "crier."
I am also not a Vulcan (a Star Trek reference) and claim that I have total control of my emotions.
In fact, I am not sure what I am on the emotional meter because I have moments of spontaneous tears. The most recent episode was driving home from work thinking about the weight of humanity's sin on Jesus.
The tears were a delayed response to a video I had watched earlier in the week. I was preparing for a class I teach at Memorial Church of Christ. The class is based on an excellent video series called The Easter Experience.
I watched the clip that shows an emotional Jesus in the garden praying and calling out to God the Father just minutes before the Savior's betrayal and arrest. I shed no tears then.
The floodgates opened the next afternoon as I was overwhelmed by the question: "Why me?"
Why am I blessed with a life worth living? Why am I blessed with a wonderful wife? Why am I fortunate enough to have two sons and a daughter-in-law who profess their faith in Christ? Why me, Lord?
In my eyes, I am no better than what Paul says about himself in Romans 7. I do what I shouldn't do. I fail to do what I should do.
Thankfully, it was Romans 6:5-10 that was stirring my emotions on that drive home.
"5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God."
Now if you take the logical and practical approach, my tears were nothing more than secretions that cleaned and lubricated my eyes.
However, God created man and woman with emotions and I suspect that many scientists would agree that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).
So I went on a quest to find a scientific explanation of tears and came across a book entitled Crying: The Mystery of Tears.by biochemist William Frey II, Ph.D.
Dr. Frey has been doing research on tears since 1977. Here is what I learned from his book and more recent studies regarding the three "types" of tears.
Guess what? There is a chemical difference between emotional/stress-related tears and those triggered by irritants to the eyes. (Do you remember how your eyes reacted the last time you cut an onion?)
They found that emotional tears produce stress relievers like prolactin (a hormone full of protein) and something called leucine enkephalin, which serves as a natural painkiller.
Our eyeballs are protected by a layer of protective fluid made up of basal tears.
This fluid is secreted by the lachrymal glands that are located above each eye. The tears containt a powerful and fast-acting antibacterial and antiviral solution called lysozym.
If you have ever been diagnosed with "excessively dry eyes", you know your chances of getting a bacterial infection in an eye is higher than normal unless you keep it lubricated with a physician-recommended solution.
Reflex tears protect your eyes from flying objects, including dust and nasty fumes. These tears are the body's response to attack and serve to wash away irritants.
So why not have a good cry?
Dr. Frey's studies and the research done by other scientists indicate that a healthy cry is strong stress-relieving medicine when battling heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.
So if you see a middle-aged, gray-haired man crying while driving his car down Telegraph Road, remember that it's good for me and good for you.
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