scars

“The best people all have some kind of scar.”

 Kiera Cass, The One

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I have a body littered with scars

Neck surgery, 5 knee surgeries

A ruptured Achilles tendon

And appendectomy

A repaired shoulder

The list goes on

those scars represent pain

and damage

they represent time

and they represent much more

commitments

actions

play

work

in some ways they are a road map of my priorities and values

I loved basketball, and skiing

I played hard

And so my body carries a few scars

I talked with an old cowboy the other other day

Who had broken about everything that could be broken

He had scars everywhere

But his eyes still lit up when he talked about horses

My soul (that part of me where the Sacred dwells, and that ultimately defines me)

Also has scars

There is a scar from the time I was bullied at school

A scar from the time that “really cute girl” in HS rejected me

A scar (or two) from all the mistakes I made that ended my first marriage

There are scars from awful moments in parenting

And scars from those big mistakes in my life, from the things I regret

In many way those scars define me

There are also scars created from watching a child die of hypothermia in norther Iraq

From children radically damaged by neglect in Romanian orphanages

The scars that come when seeing the poverty of children in southern Mexico

And looking at the plight of refugees in Azerbaijan

There are scars from sitting through too many deaths with people I care about

And scars from hearing so many horrible stories in my counseling office.

There are the fresh scars that occur every time a wildland firefighter dies, and I remember my friend Roarke

And scars that happen every time there is another mass shooting

This morning I was scarred by seeing the picture (again), or a young child in Yemen

Starving because people think money and power and more important than children

A young child now dead

Big scar

I don’t seek scars

But I wear them proudly

They are part of life

They come from life

But not just life

From caring, from loving

From letting the pain of the world penetrate our thick skins,

And touch our souls

If we are not scarred, we are sealed off

Shut down

Unfeeling

Uncaring

And frankly, uninvolved

If we are not scarred

We are bubble wrapped in anger, and arrogance

Greed and hate

Prejudice and apathy

Scars are not bad

They represent pain, damage, time life

They are symbols of engagement

Some of the best people I know

Have scars

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A note:  There are scars that are carried because of abuse, racist, domestic violence

These are ugly scars.  There are limits to this imagery.  Please know I understand the complexity of this image.

Scars that come from the abuse of power are always ugly

I am thinking in this piece, mostly of the scars that come when we dare to engage the world with compassion and generosity.  Please accept my apologies for the limitation of the image.