To be human is to be wounded–it is to have scars. Scars are just mile-markers in a story and to be human is to have an active part in the telling of yours and others’ stories.
The massive scar on my back is an often hidden testimony to my surgery over the last month. My limp is a memorial to my fight against cancer. In the Jewish scriptures their ancestor Jacob walked with a limp and it reminded him (and everyone else) of his struggle with God. Jesus has scars on his wrists and his side that bear testimony of his being human. Gandhi’s physique told a story. Mother Teresa’s crippled feet capture that she always gave away the best shoes to others while keeping the worst for herself. Her feet (and her shoes) told a story about her life. Scars. Markers. Memorials.
I’m not placing myself as an example next to Jesus, Mo T, Gandhi, and Jacob as if I’m anywhere near their level of sacrifice. That’s not the point. No, I’m actually placing all of us next to that lineup because like those icons we all bear the scars of being human. We carry with us baggage from how our mom or dad parented us, from how a family member inappropriately touched us, from the death of a friend, from depression, from an epic fight with God, or from an innumerable list of things that scar our bodies, our hearts, our selves.
We are scared people and we need not be ashamed of them. They are a part of us but they do not define who we are. Think about scars. What do you do with a cool scar? You show it off right? You’re proud of it. You’re not proud of a scar because you’re proud of the fact that you don’t use proper knife safety; no you’re proud of it because its in the past, because you’ve moved past it (though its not left behind), you’ve overcome it (though it has left a mark).
I like the term coined by the late Henri Nouwen–we all have opportunity to function as wounded healers. We’ve got scars and scratches of many kinds–but we proudly own those stories as a part of our past, as a part of who we are. We are all wounded. Some of us are being defined by our wounds, we’re living out of the story that caused those cars and thus are dying from them. Some of us try to pretend like we aren’t scared and thus live in awkward ignorance and have little story at all. All of us, however, are invited to live as wounded healers.
Listening might just be the best thing we can do to care for another. There are so few people in this world who are willing to listen. We all want to be heard but few of us want to hear. A phrase that emerged out of my schooling experience was “listening people into free speech”. Beautiful. That’s an experiment that many of us should step up to, listening people into free speech.
Is greatness worth it? It seems to me that in order to do things that will be remembered after you die, in order to be the kind of person that changes the world you’ve got to give up a lot. And I’m just not sure it’s worth it. Martin Luther King Jr. had many affairs. Gandhi watched his wife die rather than violate her body with a simple shot that would save her. Steve Jobs was eccentric and odd in extreme ways. High level pastors often make the news for their secret lives that include soliciting prostitutes, affairs, and addiction. It really seems like the people who accomplish great things inevitably sacrifice much.
My wife just can’t understand what it’s like to go through what I’m going through. She can’t understand what it’s like to have all the extra hormones that I had to deal with while I was hopped up on steroids for six months. Crying at a moments notice, being moody, irrational, and generally having a different emotional disposition are all things that she just can’t understand.