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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Sunday, November 18, 2018

scars


“The best people all have some kind of scar.”
 Kiera Cass, The One
___________________________________

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

____________________________________

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.

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