Dear Harpeth Hills,

I have cried at church the last two Sundays.

Sitting in my den with my wife and son on Sunday, even knowing what was coming ahead of time, I still teared up two weeks in a row. One week it was the singing, the next week the sermon—a sermon I had preached three days before.

I suspect I am not the only one.

We are crying because we are experiencing loss, because it is sad sometimes, because we have been thrown for a loop, and because it is just hard.

But we also cry because our hearts are tender. The hard shell that encloses our feelings has cracked. Our emotions are right there under the surface, so simple acts of kindness overwhelm us. We just want to hug somebody. We say ‘thank you’ more quickly, and ‘I love you’ falls from our lips often. We cry on a Zoom conference call.

I don’t know when things will return to normal or even semi-normal. But I know one thing I hope will not change when normal returns.

I hope our hearts stay tender.

I love you.

—Chris Smith