in defense of scars

“Maybe you’re not supposed to get over it. Some things you can’t move past. They scar you. Change you permanently.”

~Agent Mae to Coulson on TV’s “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD”

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“If you can be still a suffer awhile, you shall without a doubt see the help of God come in your need.”

~Thomas A. Kempis, Imitation of Christ

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“Death is meant to indelibly scar our hearts because love is meant to wound us in that way.”

~Ron Rolheiser,

"Dying into safe hands."

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For the past few weeks (yes, from the end of Lent and into the Easter season), I have been discovering, little by little, the album “Evergreen” by Audrey Assad.

I find her lyrics quite compelling – and today, as I ponder the Gospel where Thomas says out loud that he needs to see Christ’s wounds, it is the beginning of Assad’s song, “When I See You,” that speaks to my heart:

You have loved me well, in a million ways
But my wounds are all I know
So I turn my head, and I hide my face
Too afraid to come back home

But all of the doors swing open
When I see You, when I see You
You make my heart unbroken
When I see You, when I see You
And I come undone, I come undone!

Every one of us is broken, wounded, and scarred in some way. This is, after all, a sign of truly living, of giving, and of dying for others on this our earthly pilgrimage. 

The scars left in me and on me by each wound, mark my life and define my spiritual journey. I would not be who I am today without each one of these marks, these scars.

This is reason enough to sing Alleluia on this second Sunday of Easter, don’t you think?

But our wounds not only tell our story. They also connect us to one another as the Body of Christ. Every one of my scars, visible or internal, can be– if I let them— a sign of mercy and an avenue for genuine compassion for others in their suffering.

Yes, I can speak to you of brokenness, because I, too, have been broken. I have felt despair. I have known unspeakable loneliness. I have walked the way of hopelessness.

Satan, the great deceiver, wants us to drink the Kool-Aid of fear and despair, the lie that says that no one can truly understand me, or my woundedness. Don’t believe it!

That which is most personal is also the most universal. Our personal suffering can and does unite us.

My friend Carrie, who fought until her last breath for more time on this earth in order to mother her young children as long as possible, described the gift of her scars this way.

The marks on her body, Carrie explained to me, was her road map, “a map I hope leads me to eternal life!”

In reality, Carrie and her scars were, and continue to be, a light post leading all of us to heaven. And I have no doubt that her suffering prayers on behalf of others as she walked through that pain, carried many people through their sorrowful journey.

Although I cannot take your pain away, I can walk with you—just as Christ, with all His visible wounds, walks with us.

In the words of my friend and retired pastor, Fr. Thomas Boyer, “As John tells the story, Jesus comes with his wounds, because a risen Lord with no wounds would not have much to say to the wounded people in that room or anywhere else… new life comes from these broken places, and this is resurrection; and it is a call to go, be broken and suffer a bit for the sake of another. 

ps. photos of Chihuly exhibit at Oklahoma City Museum of Art

stress and anxiety at Christmas: open up your life

“We must go through the stages of feeling, not only in the last death of anything, but all the earlier little deaths. If we abort these emotional stages by easy answers, all they do is take a deeper form of disguise and come out in another way. So many people learn that the hard way—by getting ulcers, by all kinds of psychosomatic diseases, depression, chronic irritability, and misdirected anger—because they refuse to let their emotions run their course, honor them consciously, or find some appropriate place to share them.  Emotions are not right or wrong, good or bad. They are merely indicators of what is happening, and must be listened to, usually in the body. People who do not feel deeply finally do not know or love deeply either. It is the price we pay for loving. Like Job we must be willing to feel our emotions and come to grips with the mystery in our head, our heart, and, yes, our body too. To be honest, that takes our entire life. My emotions are still a mystery to me, and without contemplation they would control me.” ~Richard Rohr, adapted from Job and the Mystery of Suffering: Spiritual Reflections “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” ~John 14:27 “How better to celebrate again the presence of God among us than by learning from Joseph how to be free, fearless, and faithful, prudent, and wise? Faith for Joseph was an adventure that allowed him to walk with confidence into the unknown. He did not just open his home, he first opened his life. Three days before Christmas, the Church invites us to do the same.” ~Fr. Thomas Boyer

I’ve had a couple of days recently where waves of assorted emotions sweep over me, like an artic blast blowing into town. Often without warning, I feel a shift, followed by an immediate flow of feelings and tears.

I’ve written about anxiety and stress before. But this is different. I don’t know how to explain it better other than to say that something as simple as a song, a card, an email, even an image, reaches into my heart and I flinch. It seems to be frequently connected to a memory or a person, sometimes not.

Experts tell us that anxiety and being overwhelmed by memories and emotions is not unusual during holidays, especially at Christmas time. But this is new and unfamiliar territory for me.

I tried to describe to my friend Patricia the depth of emotions and how they have surprised me lately, and she wisely pointed out that, as we get older, the sensations and reactions at this time of year run deeper. 

Putting up the tree is no longer just about the task, but about the memories and emotions that each ornament brings. Setting out the nativity is not just setting out the pieces, but more about our unfolding understanding into this incarnational event that has changed us, and what it means to us now, as well as its significance in our pilgrimage towards eternal Life.

In Pat’s words,

“What is different now is that thru my life and my living I am in conversion.   I know now that I am a part of incarnation.  Christmas was Jesus becoming carnate, flesh, a baby.  A miraculous, difficult squeeze for God, for The Holy Spirit!  It is at Christmas that I realize I am becoming Spirit and that, thru my memories, loves and griefs, re-experienced thru reliving the traditions of the season, I a leaving my human life behind and squeezing slowly—oh, so slowly, into spirit.  We followers of Jesus, we adopted sons and daughters of God; have a difficult job trying to balance life in two worlds, working thru our life-long Rebirth.  Exhausting.  And in Advent the walls between seem thinner, the consequences clearer, and our joyful but breaking hearts speak to us out loud.”

In case it helps any of you facing similar moments over the holydays—especially when it feels like too much... here are my action steps:

#1, I let myself cry. The tears are my prayer.

#2, I tell a friend (and also my husband. Doing both helped a lot this week!)

#3, I go to daily Mass (where, of course, I inevitably tear up at communion ;-)

#4, I turn on all the Christmas lights, especially the new white tinkling ones I hung this year over the backyard French doors and across the mantle.

#5, I take a long walk with my hubby and my Siberian Husky Diego. There is nothing like physical activity to settle down the mind and the heart.

Yes, the walls between the here and the hereafter feel thinner during Advent... So go ahead: feel deep, breathe deep, sing and dance to music, laugh a lot… let this be your prayer of openness.

[photos around my house this weekend, following a very impressive ice storm!]