Tears are all well and good, as long as we dont forget that its the emotion thats the focus, not the tears. Tears are to be expected but can be controlled to a degree.

As a child I thought that crying was a mandatory part of sunday meeting from what I had seen. I would have to force my tears if I ever went up. I think some adults today still think that.

I have to admit that when I started dating a man after my divorce which followed a 35 year marriage, I was endeared to him when I learned that he cried! I had endured yelling as the only acceptable way to vent feelings of frustration, anger, grief, sadness or whatever. Even when I knew consciously it was not my fault, the yelling was directed at me because I was there until I finally realized I could not continue to live that way.

Thank heaven for men who can cry when expressing their feelings. Please don't tell your sons that boys don't cry. The alternatives are so much worse!

My dad was a crier and so am I. I wish my own husband could cry. It would let me know he has some emotions. In 25 years, I've only seen him cry once. How sad is that?

Everyone needs to cry sometimes.

Latter-day Saints place WAAAYY too much emphasis on emotionality and are confusing it with "the Spirit." I am appalled when Gospel Doctrine teachers, or CES instructors or even speakers in Church put on that dramatic, spiritual, emotional "voice" to try to make it seem that they are being "spiritual." What a joke! The only thing worse than such bad acting is the fact that so many in the audience actually fall for it! The speakers think that if they can get people to cry, then they have "edified" them with the Spirit, and many in the audience think that if they cry, they are feeling the Spirit. It is a deception. Human emotions are notoriously unreliable, irrational, and biased in very damaging ways. Emphasizing emotion is a huge mistake in the Church that many members need to repent of!

Give a man a little knowledge and he thinks he has wisdom. Good grief, what a cinical sad way to think. People can of course fake it and yes, emotion can be forced. To do that is a poor attempt at manipulation, but how dare you use terms like "joke", or "fall for it", or "deception", or "damaging" to describe people whose emotion gets the better of them . It is you, sir, who needs to repent. Shame on you. Tears are the result of many causes, thoughts, memories both joyful and sad. Tears can also the result of feeling the spirit, and anyone who does not feel the same emotion or sense the same spirit as someone who sheds a tear or two has no right to judge someone who does. If you actually are a Bishop as your headline suggests, I feel very badly for your ward. It goes without saying that I feel badly for your wife, if you really .