Could Crying Be A Spiritual Gift?

As I squirmed in my bed and wept for over thirty minutes last night, I suddenly began to wonder: Could crying be a spiritual gift?

As I wrote in an e-mail to a dear friend this morning:

I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. I suppose that I finally fell asleep because I exhausted myself...although I do remember sitting up so that I could breathe and rocking myself gently back and forth.

I had a conversation about spiritual gifts yesterday. I've always taken Paul's list of spiritual gifts as the exhaustive list. Like...I really don't think that music is a spiritual gift, rather music is a talent that must be expressed through another spiritual gift if it is to be used to glorify God and build up others in the body of Christ. Think about it: how much music does NOT honor God and/or build others up?

BUT...let's say that the list isn't exhaustive--which it's likely not. COULD crying be a spiritual gift? I know it sounds silly. But when I start crying like I was crying last night, it's like it's from the very deepest part of my being. It's from this place that's way way way down deep--a place that I don't normally feel--very gutteral--very connected to my humanity--and I wonder if it's connected to all of humanity.

I know a lot of people who can't cry--or who don't cry--for whatever reason. So I wonder if maybe I'm crying out all of the angst and hurt and emotion that other people can't. I remembered Tonglen last night on one of my trips to the bathroom to blow my nose. I remembered that I wasn't the only person in the world feeling the sadness and grief and heartache that I was feeling last night. So I tried to feel it for everyone else feeling it--and those who couldn't--and then to breathe out peace...although my breathing was very ragged. And that's when I began to wonder if crying could be a spiritual gift...

Maybe it IS compassion or empathy or sympathy or something else. BUT. Other people feel those things, too, right? And they don't weep with the intensity and force with which I was weeping. You know?

So...COULD crying be a spiritual gift? I guess I'll sit with that thought and see.