going into and through our wounds: part one

For most of my adult life I have heard it said that our "wounds are the way into our healing." From the first time I read Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer in seminary to well into my 50's, I found that I was drawn to this truth. Not only did it evoke my conviction that inward and outward compassion was the essence of authentic living, it also rang true to the gospel: "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:24) The problem for me, however, was no matter how profoundly I wanted to live into and through my wounds, I had no idea how to do it. The invitations resonated: what I needed was guidance if the words were to become flesh.

In time I found spiritual directors who led me into conversations about my pain and introduced me to the sacrament of reconciliation. That was joy upon joy.  Pastoral counselors and those in AA also opened up for me the legacy of the brokenness in my life as well as the wisdom cultivated by dealing with addiction and abuse. The first time I did a "fearless moral inventory" at the Hazelden Clinic, I was overwhelmed - and became a 12 Step believer. Still, something was missing: I was starting to name my demons and wounds, but remained in the dark about how to enter my brokenness as the way into grace. For decades, I found these words of Henri Nouwen's compelling and confusing at the same time:

You know something about brokenness. You know about the broken world. You know about brokenness in your country. But most personally, you know it in your more intimate life. You know we are broken people and we suffer very intimate pains. The pain of a desire for intimacy that hasn’t been fulfilled... the pain of a relationship that did not work... the pain of an addiction that is so hard to confess... The secret pain of loneliness that can bite us so much... And what I would like to say to you is don’t be afraid of your pain, but dare to embrace it. If you are wounded, and I know that you and I are, put your brokenness under the blessing. We are called to give our lives to others, so you and I can bear fruit. And all brokenness, and all dying, and all suffering is there to allow you to enter into solidarity with the whole human family, and to give yourselves to others so that your life can bear fruit. God asks you not to have a successful life but to have a fruitful life.

Maybe you have known this dilemma, too? Trusting that faith calls us deeper - even deeper into own inner darkness in the shadow of the Cross - but never really knowing how to explore or navigate this descent? Poetry certainly evoked parts of the journey for me; consider the opening of Dante's Inferno:

In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.

So too with key works of music, film, dance, sculpture and literature. But the arts were clues to authenticity, but not guidance into the depths. What I was looking for was an articulation of the essential spiritual practices that I could make a part of my ordinary life. Not a guarantee, a promissory note or encouragement; just a road map of the soul. Early on I wondered if the written wisdom of others on this pilgrimage might be useful, but discovered that The Cloud of Unknowing was too obscure and The Dark Night of the Soul seemed impenetrable. I had much the same reaction when trying to embrace the medieval mystics like Julian of Norwich or Hildegarde of Bingen. My own Reformed tradition didn't fare any better: the implied spiritual practices of Calvin, and the early Puritan tracts on prayer, left me puzzled as well. As has always been true for me, Reformed writers seem more interested in right thinking - doctrine - than embodied right living from the heart. (NOTE: years later, the work of Howard Rice and the Spirituality Network at San Francisco Theological Seminary teased out a tender-hearted alternative with Reformed Spirituality and The Pastor as Spiritual Guide. Let me add that the work of Richard Rohr et al at the Living School of the Center for Contemplation and Action has also raised up clear and accessible tools for entering the mystical realm of descent and renewal. For more information, please see: (https://cac. org/living-school/living-school-welcome/) 

My first clue concerning a guide to the spiritual life came through Dakota, a spiritual biography by the poet Kathleen Norris, who found her own grounding in the Rule of St. Benedict. Learning about the way of Benedict led me to Sr. Joan Chittister's two gems: Wisdom Distilled from the Daily and The Rule of St. Benedict: Insights for the Ages. Both volumes explained the practices Benedict established for his monks along with wise, practical contemporary commentary. From Sr. Joan I learned to pray the hours and seek a balance in each day between work, prayer, rest and engagement. Benedictine practices led me to the Community of Celebration - a modern Anglican monastic order in Aliquippa, PA - who combined beautiful new folk music with the Rule of Benedict and gave me a way to practice, question, explore and adapt praying and living the hours. (For more information: https://www.communityofcelebration.com)

My second resource in learning how to enter the wisdom of my wounds came from Fr. Thomas Keating and the Centering Prayer movement. Three insights were revealed in the work Keating shared with the world: 1) silence is the first language of the holy; 2) silence opens us to our powerlessness; and 3) learning to trust God's loving presence within the silence is the only way healing ripens. Silence is frightening. Silence is clarifying. It is cleansing, counter-cultural, and takes practice. Keating put it like this: 

The real spiritual journey depends on our acknowledging the unmanageability of our lives. The love of God or the Higher Power is what heals us. Nobody becomes a full human being without love. It brings to life people who are most damaged. The steps are really an engagement in an ever-deepening relationship with God. Divine love picks us up when we sincerely believe nobody else will. We then begin to experience freedom, peace, calm, equanimity, and liberation from cravings for what we have come to know are damaging—cravings that cannot bring happiness, but at best only momentary relief that makes the real problem worse.

Learning to experience my wounds in the silence, neither running away from them nor obsessing upon them, was huge. Making a measure of peace with boredom, anxiety and monkey-mind was critical, too. From Keating, I was also reintroduced to Thomas Merton: "If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.” I am still a novice with silence - and continue to carry a ton of anxiety - and that's just who I am. This fall I have made a commitment to practice resting more in the sacred silence as another step on this pilgrimage into peace. (For more information: https://www. contemplativeoutreach.org/category/category/centering-prayer)

My third resource came from Fr. Ed Hays in his little book, St. George and the Dragon: the Quest for the Holy Grail. I had been reading Fr. Ed's prayers and insights since the early 1970's. His book, Prayers for a Domestic Church, gave me contemporary sacramental language for my own inner life as well as a simplified order for daily prayer. And truth be told, I had owned this book for probably 12 years before I read it. As I have said elsewhere that "when the student is ready, the Buddha will appear." 

Clearly, I was ready in Tucson after a serious crash with burnout and exhaustion. What was particularly useful were the playful parables the dragon shares with St. George (who was also dealing with the consequences of being too busy and too tired.) Specifically, the chapter that literally discusses the wisdom of our wounds opened my eyes, heart and mind: our wounds are gifts only if we learn their upside down blessings. Such is the challenge; our feelings are clues and we must learn to do the exact opposite of those feelings. Feel afraid and want to run away and hide? The way of holiness asks you to stay and engage. Feeling angry and want to judge and punish? The way of the heart invites you to be silent and forgiving. Want to rant, scream and rage? Better to listen and wait. This one chapter in this little book was exactly what I had been looking for - it was life-changing - but it took me 15 years to be ready to receive it. (For more information: https://www.edwardhays.com/st-george-and-the-dragon.html)

NOTE: In part two I will share four other resources that brought intellectual clarity and practical guidance to me concerning the descent into my brokenness including: 1) the serenity prayer and a spirituality of imperfection, 2) the value of anam caras (spiritual guidance and friendship), 3) the horizontal worship of Taize, 4) Jean Vanier and L'Arche, and 5) the once unpublished but now collected spiritual direction/formation notes of Henri Nouwen. This quote from Christine Valters Paintner has also been life-giving to me:

Being a monk in the world means, for me, choosing to live contemplatively in resistance to the demand for speed, to live mindfully and with intention instead of rushing through life, to savor my experience rather than consume it, and to remember that my self-worth is not defined by how much I do or achieve, and so I am called to make time for simply being. At the heart of contemplative prayer is an encounter with the Holy One who mystics like John of the Cross tell us dwells in our hearts as a "living flame of love". Contemplative living is about relationship and extending that infinite source of compassion within us to self, others, and creation.