The brilliant musical arranger - and performer - T. Bone Burnett once recorded an album of out of the box, confessional pop songs with a distinctively Christian flavor. The title track, "Trap Door," sets the tone:It's a funny thing about humility
As soon as you know you're being humble
You're no longer humble
It's a funny thing about life
You've got to give up your life to be alive
You've got to suffer to know compassion
You can't want nothing if you want satisfaction...
It's a funny thing about love
The harder you try to be loved
The less lovable you are
It's a funny thing about pride
When you're being proud
You should be ashamed
You find only pain if you seek after pleasure
You work like a slave if you seek out the leisure
Watch out for the trap door...
If I were writing this I might add a third verse that said something like: It's a funny thing about trusting God's healing love: just when you think your wounds are over they reach up and grab you by the throat - again. Or something comparably paradoxical. As the mystics relentlessly confirm, there is a wisdom to our wounds that can help us live more compassionately and authentically - but never think for a moment that these wounds vanish. They are part of us forever. They can become our path into blessing but they must be managed. Accepted. Listened to carefully and honored in humility lest they continue to wreak havoc in our lives.
This practice is both how "all things can become one" as Jesus said in St. John's gospel - living into and embracing the unity of opposites in the sacrament of life - it is also how we leave childish things behind to become more fully whole and holy. St. Paul taught that when we are children, we act like children and speak like children and think like children. But there comes a time to put childish things away and become adults - to mature and be spiritually awake - to practice living into the wisdom of our wounds. Fr. Richard Rohr uses a phrase, our work as faithful adults is to conform our lives to "the blue print" of God in reality. This is who Christ is for the world: a visible human being embracing the fullness of holy reality in his flesh. He is the Word - the blue print of God - making flesh God's fullness in time and space.
In other words, God’s “first idea” and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable. The word used in the Bible for this idea was Logos, taken from Greek philosophy; I would translate Logos as the “Blueprint” or Primordial Pattern for reality. The whole of creation—not just Jesus—is the beloved community, the partner in the divine dance. Everything is the “child of God.” No exceptions. When you think of it, what else could anything be? All creatures must in some way carry the divine DNA of their Creator. The Incarnation, then, is not only “God becoming Jesus.” It is a much broader event. “Christ” is a word for the Primordial Template (Logos) “through whom all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him” (John 1:3; my emphasis). Seeing in this way has reframed, reenergized, and broadened my own religious belief, and I believe it could be Christianity’s unique contribution among the world religions. (Rohr)
The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created - the world - people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power... the mystery of God's divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. (Yet what happens over and over is) that people knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him (that is live into the holy blueprint) they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” (Not as punishment, but to call you back home to love.)
The great apostle continues to say that the longer we refuse to return home to the grace of God, the more confused we become - and eventually we start to act bestially to one another and ourselves. We have given up the blueprint of grace and refuse to honor the wisdom of our wounds. I know this is true for me which is why one of the first passages of Scripture I memorized was Romans 12. I first learned it as "present yourselves as a living sacrifice to God." Peterson's words put it like this:
A few days ago we were in rural New York state exploring a new region for us both. I fell in love with Kingston: the historic district has been physically restored, the arts scene is vibrant and creative, and the waterfront is hip and fun. As we drove through other parts of the area, however, I started to become uncomfortable. There are parts of Trump country that feel unsafe to me. And the farther away I get from doctors, food, shelter and an inclusive vibe that holds a place for me and others who don't always fit in to the status quo, the more fearful I become. I call it my "deliverance" condition: I am certain that some act of horrible violence will take place out in the country that will wound me or those I love. I felt it as we drove through parts of rural Kentucky before the 2015 election. I've known it going across the Texas panhandle whenever I walked into a truck stop to use the restroom. I feel it when we're driving alone on winding, isolated mountain roads in what seems like the middle of nowhere to me. And I felt it on part of this trip, too.
Granted I was weary from driving - and being on a severe mountain road that went on forever didn't help. So when we got out of the car, on a high, cold ridge I felt like a child. A terrified child. A little boy who knew there was danger lurking right around the corner that I could not stop. Now my beloved cherishes the stillness of these remote places. She rests whenever we get beyond the lights, noise and culture of the city. And I confess that the pure quiet on the top of this ridge was exquisite. But I couldn't enjoy it because it didn't feel safe to me. Over the years I have learned to pay attention to this fear. Yes, I must stay alert but need not run and hide. Be awake but also take in the rugged beauty, too. But on this trip all I felt was the urge to get the hell away and back to the semblance of civilization. My inner terror was palpable. I could not find words to describe it. Or prayers to settle it. It was simply an encounter with hell.
There are a variety of reasons for this, from past abuse to an awareness that our culture hates the feminine and those men who embrace it in themselves. I know this. I have carefully avoided such places as an adult. I have listened to and honored those wounds within me and learned from them as well. I also worry about caring for my sweetheart's health - and what a challenge that presents to us both. I try to plan for these things. Yet once again, I had grown lax in the grounding of grace. So my fear reached up like a demon, grabbed me by the throat, and shook me for all I was worth.
Oh the wisdom of our wounds is humbling, yes? "My ways are not your ways," says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. So keep practicing the path of grace. Nourishing the love of the Lord within. Listening to and honoring the pain so that I might live in compassion and harmony with God's creation. Or, as T. Bone sang: watch out for the trap door. It is a funny thing about God: you do have to give up what you think is your life to really be alive. Such is the unity and unifying love of what we see as opposites. The paradox of faith. The serenity of acceptance. St. Francis got it oh so right...
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life
Amen.
Oh the wisdom of our wounds is humbling, yes? "My ways are not your ways," says the Lord through the prophet Isaiah. So keep practicing the path of grace. Nourishing the love of the Lord within. Listening to and honoring the pain so that I might live in compassion and harmony with God's creation. Or, as T. Bone sang: watch out for the trap door. It is a funny thing about God: you do have to give up what you think is your life to really be alive. Such is the unity and unifying love of what we see as opposites. The paradox of faith. The serenity of acceptance. St. Francis got it oh so right...
Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life
Amen.
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