The Oxford English Dictionary
reluctantly admits that woundedness is a valid word, but says it is rare. What is not rare is the fact of human
woundedness. We bear the legacies of
wounding events or words – physical, mental, psychic, or simply fantasy, they
can be open wounds or troublesome scars.
So, life for many entails finding ways, often heroically, to compensate
for the limitations woundedness imposes.
There is, just as real, a woundedness of spirit, a sense of defeat it
may be, or of inferiority, or deprivation.
Any or all of this can manifest in anger, or in defensiveness,
unwillingness to take risks… it may show up in euphoria, partying, misuse of
alcohol and other drugs. And there is
the woundedness of ageing – it’s not only bits of us packing up like an old
washing machine, but also, in far more cases than we think proper, the
distressing facts of senility.
One reality of woundedness is
that the more we try to hide it, the more it may be apparent to the discerning
eye. Denial is another ploy…
“Everything’s going to be just fine”, you hear routinely in American movies...
somewhere over the rainbow, I presume.
Send the children upstairs… lest they hear something that might suggest
the world can be a nasty place… which they may be suspecting already. The powerfully rich cosmetic industry is
dedicated to denial, driving (botoxing) back the visible effects of ageing...
with what we might call mixed results.
Jesus was wounded. It is in the nature of love to share woundedness. The ancient Hebrew prophecy said the Servant
would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows[1]. Even the resurrected Lord invites his
disciples to see his wounds[2]
– rich wounds, says the hymn writer, yet visible above[3]. He bore the wounds that go with simply living
among people, in his case, an oppressed people brutally ruled by an occupying
power… but also, his immediate company of disciples and friends had its
tensions and defections, misunderstandings, needless alienations. Kawau Bay some mornings is beautifully calm and
unruffled... but an elderly Maori woman I met one day in a waiting room in
Warkworth, when I said the bay looked nice, told me the taniwha – she actually
called it Tangaroa – was getting restless and therefore dangerous. Church meetings at times could be among the
worst for wounding people.
When we come to the silence and
stillness of contemplative prayer, we have come to a “place” where there can be
no guilt or embarrassment about our woundedness. There is no talk of blame here – no one says,
“Well she brought it on herself” ... as though that contributes to the sum of
understanding and compassion, or truth.
Any brokenness we may set to one side, because here at any rate we are
living from wholeness and newness. The
grace that operates here, in love, is reconfiguring our relationships with the
past. What is asked from us is the
willingness of the heart to be still, to cease the chatter and
self-justification, and to say Yes to God who is always saying Yes to us, in
love.
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