Scars

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“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”

                                                             Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game

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We all have scars

A quick glance in the mirror reveals 10 surgeries

From an Achilles tendon, to a neck fusion

(and plenty of things in between)

Each scar tells a story

If not of a moment gone bad

Of wear and tear

Of genes gone wild

But there are scars that can’t be seen

The scars of rejection and failure

The scars of wounds that run deep into the depths of my soul

Scars I carry because I was foolish

Or because I fell in love (and it wasn’t returned)

Scars that came because I was lonely, angry

Scared, greedy, needy

Mostly the wounds are healed, but not all

And then there are the scars that have come when the word became flesh

When the sacred became real

So real I could no longer avoid its reality

No longer avoid the intrusive presence

Of the Spirit

Scars that came when Sacred sliced through my defenses

And left nothing untouched

Radical surgery

Rearranging the very stuff of which I am made

When the “word made flesh”

Involved my flesh

Incarnation now

I walk with these scars

Feel these scars

Sometimes suffer from these scars

They remind me

They inform me

They humble me

They make me sad

And they give me joy

And this scarred visage

Cannot help but look at your scarred visage

And reach out