Connecting Through Our Woundedness
“The reality is that every human being is broken and vulnerable. How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds when we are all wounded!”—M. Scott Peck in The Different Drum (Touchstone, 1998).
Henri Nouwen also tells us that we become less, not more, vulnerable when we share our woundedness. It takes enormous energy to pretend we are “just fine.” We hide who we are, trying to be something we are not, wearing a mask. As we take off that mask, we can now employ all that energy simply to be ourselves, to become the person God created us to be. We become more human. In turn, others share their wounds because they recognize us as a safe place—another human being who may have just an inkling of what pain is about.
Letting others know we are human and have pain and make mistakes is also a path into the divine within ourselves and others. This is the path we are all seeking. A wide, gaping entrance to this path opens through our wounds directly into the Christ, the Holy, the Spirit within each other.
This is the path from Good Friday to Resurrection. We especially remember Christ’s woundedness and our woundedness, and that connection to Christ the King within us on this Christ the King Sunday on our liturgical calendar.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/