we are half-persons with quartered faces

lacking balance in our lives;

leaning on the edge of collapse

we embrace hope's escape from despair.

we cry with muffled tongues

a word swallowed in each sound;

thirsting for some wine of peace

we imbibe life's oblivion drugs.

we long for physicians to come

and patch our broken parts

to listen to our garbled response

hacking through dry throats.

we languish on the banks of Eden

surveying the tree across the way

awaiting  the cherub to sheath its sword

and Messiah to ferry us in. 

Thoughts of Alan Jones:

  -The desert way of believing claims we are most truly ourselves when we are most at home with ourselves.

  -In psychological terms we may say that since God commands only our good, we may trust the inner processes of our own development.

  -God wills our good.  This means that everything that happens to us, including our sinning, can be turned to our good.

  -In fact, the gift of tears comes relatively late in a person's walk with God.  St. Gregory Nazianzen said that tears are the fifth baptism.  The first is that of Moses - a matter of simple water.  The second is that of John the Baptist, which is greater than that of Moses because it is one of repentance.  The third is baptism of the Spirit.  The fourth is baptism by blood in martyrdom, "which is the most perfect because Christ himself received it....Finally there is that of tears, more painful than martyrdom because it consists nightly of bathing one's bed and covers with tears..." 

-You have no tears?  Buy tears from the poor.  You have no sadness?  Call the poor man to moans with you.  If  your  heart is hard and has neither sadness nor tears, with alms invite the needy to weep with you...Provide yourself with the water of tears, and may the poor come to help you put out the fire in which you are perishing.  All the waves of  the immense ocean would not wash you as would these streams which the heart sends to the eyes. (James of Saroug)