It was a moment of healing for me.
I sat in a classroom on the outskirts of Kigali, Rwanda. My fellow students, the overwhelming majority
of whom were African, and I were being led through the chapter on “The Wounded
Heart” in the curriculum of the International School of Reconciliation, a
course of experiential training that has been used with great success to heal
the wounds of the genocide in Rwanda. It
is now being used to bring transformation in other places of conflict.
Joyce, a Kenyan woman, asked us to write down the wounds we
carry in our hearts. I looked around me
at people with a living memory of genocide, civil war in South Sudan, and
election violence in Kenya. A woman who still lived under the legacy of Apartheid in South Africa and an African-American woman who remembered the
days of Jim Crow sat among us. Some of
these people carried visibly in their bodies scars of their woundedness.
I felt uncomfortable.
I wondered what wounds could I be carrying that would measure up to
their scarring. The wrongs done to me
seemed so trivial. Then Joyce said: “You do not measure your wounds by the wounds
of others.” She went on to say that
woundedness is not a relative thing. We
each have our wounds; great or small, they hurt and hinder us.
This was a liberating moment for me. I was able to own the wounds I carry.
The goal of this exercise was that, having owned our
woundedness, we would carry those wounds to the cross and find healing and freedom
from them in the love of Christ.
This was a part of our training in the way of reconciliation. We are better equipped to acknowledge the pain of others and
foster empathy if we have first owned our own wounds and found healing and
freedom from their power over us.
This opens the gates to the journey of reconciliation.
The Bible acknowledges the woundedness we all carry,
referring to a “crushed spirit” (Prov. 18:14 and Ps. 34:18). God heals the brokenhearted and bandages
their wounds (Ps. 147:3). Jesus healed more than people's physical maladies; he healed lives and hearts as well. Before God can
do this for us, we must own our wounds and acknowledge our broken hearts.
Americans, particularly men, are not good at owning
woundedness. Samuel Osherton, in his
book Finding Our Fathers—How a Man’s Life
is Shaped by His Relationship with His Father, writes about the unexpressed
and unacknowledged woundedness men carry.
Below much male anger, he writes, lies a deep sadness and loneliness (p.
110).
All of us, men and women alike, want to bury our hurts because
they, well, hurt. Yet no matter how deeply we bury them, they still shape us. We try to clothe ourselves and our nation in
the trappings of power and might, untouched by failure, hurt, defeat, and
disappointment. We want to move through
the world as winners, untouched by loss and defeat.
There is so much anger in our nation these days. Is it because we deny our vulnerability? We bury our hurts and pain so deep we can no
longer name them, but they still haunts us.
God wants to heal our broken hearts and bind our
wounds, both personal and national. Recognizing and owning our hurts
is the beginning of healing and the freedom that follows.
When we have submitted to that process, maybe we will be more successful
at healing the brokenness of our communities.
That day in Rwanda, Joyce gave me permission to own my wounds
and find healing. From that flows greater freedom to be reconciled to those around me.
Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist Churches of
New York State
No comments:
Post a Comment