3-22-22 ONE SOLITARY TEAR

A dear young friend saw me sitting in the parking lot of the church this morning and stopped to thank me for something I’d given him last week. We chatted  for a minute through the passenger window of my car, then he paused and said:

“I got my mission call today.”

In our church young men and women on the brink of independence often decide to forego their education, employment, and all other worldly pleasures that entice 18- and 19-year-olds. They, instead, make the courageous leap into missionary work, dedicating up to two years of full-time service to the Lord. They go through a somewhat rigorous application and interview process and are then assigned by the General Authorities in our church. It’s a big deal in our culture when that “call”, or notification, comes.

I opened my car door and ran over to embrace him. He told me where, and when, and what new language he would be learning. As we spoke, leaning against the side of my car, I looked at the face of this young man, whom I have loved since he was a child. His mandarin orange hair swept to the side. His jawline had grown manly and whiskered since the days his boy-soprano voice sang in my Heavenly Choir. As he talked, I could see the joy bubbling up in him, like he was trying to process this long awaited revelation. A beautiful smile came over him as he spoke. The late morning sun caught itself shining in a solitary tear as it sprang from his eye and gently slid down the side of his cheek. The whole of my soul curled itself around my heart as I watched it meander down his face, his words shifting to the background as my love for him overtook all. One gentle tear, making its way to his smile, his chest rising and falling in rhythmic effort to contain all the emotion of his heart. I was enraptured.

Our human existence seems to be a constant recombining of ingredients from the pantry of our lives. We create recipes of experience and feelings and thoughts. We gather up conflict and weariness, stir in a little tension and bring them to a rolling boil. We attempt to whip the sweetness of gatherings like pure white cream and preserve it in the proverbial freezer of our experiences, hoping it will remain unchanged. Some ingredients combine poorly, and we try, often unsuccessfully, to discard those recipes. But some recipes turn out unexpectedly delicious. We hope to remember how those were made and attempt to recreate them. Of all the recipes of emotion I’ve tried in my human experience, I think gentle laughter through tears might be my favorite. There is a divine balance in it, just the right amount of salty and sweet. True, pure, heartfelt laughter through tears is unmaintainable. That’s probably why it’s such a delicacy. It has to be captured quickly, because soon it is overtaken by one or the other emotions and it is gone. But when you’ve tasted it, when you’ve felt it and inhaled for a few breaths in its presence, your heart is somehow disproportionally renewed. 

This boy-turned-man who pretty much owned my heart to begin with, sealed it to his this morning in the otherwise empty parking lot of the church. He stirred up my favorite recipe and handed it to me. I’ll hold the place, the time, the temperature and the image in my holy space for however long my memory will allow me. 

One gentle tear.

One radiant smile.

One massively good heart.

They all came together today in a glorious flash of divinity. 

Godspeed, Prince Andrew.

Andrew Manwaring
England Leeds Mission
Mandarin speaking
July 2022 - July 2024