Do you ever contemplate pain, and the relationships between wounded people?
Pain is pain, regardless of how it settles on a person, and people who have experienced deep pain can often spot each other immediately. We peek over walls and connect at first glimpse of body language or restrained eyes or that slightly condescending, over-compensatory kind of interest that practically screams I know what it’s like to be hurt by people! It’s an unfortunate fraternity, an instant, uninvited, incomplete intimacy that’s sometimes refreshing, sometimes uncomfortable and unwelcome, but real all the same.
The wounded person’s recompense to a wounding world on behalf of their pain is often the balm that their own scars require, and is often applied recklessly, passionately, because deep wounds cut to the primal core of a person and it changes their eyes – the wounded person can never shake free of that part of the soul which glimpsed the world in animal black-and-white, and often, a person’s passions flow from that place. I think they’re often mistaken for darker emotions. And I think that, if you learn a person’s passions, you’ll learn their wounds, whether or not they ever speak them aloud, whether or not they want them known.
Sometimes we wounded can inflict more pain on each other than anyone outside the unfortunate fraternity, because we recognize the pain and need in each other, but in doing so, we can’t escape the vulnerability of knowing each other’s eyes, even with our own eyes closed. Maybe we can gently challenge each other with a little immunity because we know the landscape, but sometimes we only step gingerly around each others’ lives instead, not wanting to intrude, wanting even less to risk intrusion: so afraid to experience grace without truth, which is merely empty charity; to experience truth without grace, which is stark cruelty; or love with no grace or truth, which will always lack.
I don't think there's any way we can administer meaningful, painfully-refreshing grace to each other without knowing the truths of each other's lives. I don't think we can ever know each others' truths if we don't offer each other the safety of grace in which to unburden and know the tenuous headiness of new vulnerability. I don't think we can even care enough about anyone, without love, to offer grace or invest in truth. What real value do any of them have, separate from each other?
Grace is most manifest in the face of the piercing truths of the human condition, and joy unspeakable awaits those who delve deeply into the truth of what's in front of them. You find yourself there, in the truth – everything that’s missing, everything that aches, everything you hold at arms’ length, everything that swells inside your chest, everything that you were made for and the entire story of your life is waiting for you, in the truth. You find others in the same condition, in the truth. All of us tentatively sticking our toes into the depths, hiding from each other and ourselves, accepting empty grace like sugar on the tongue and calling it “nourishment” and "relationship," fleeing from bitter, unmitigated truths because they hurt us, and rightfully so. Hiding from real love because that's where the in-between tension resides: that's where the real work begins, and that's where the true rest is found.
The more deeply you delve into the truth, you gather to yourself more and more opportunity to administer complete grace to those around you. If you want to be a positive force in the world, you owe the world a complete picture of grace, love, and truth – and it starts with administering grace to yourself in order to embrace the truth of your own life. Beginning to end. The truths are bitter, but there is grace, and love really does abound. And the world has enough fakers.
I don't know the truths of your life, or to what degree you allow grace or love to interact with them. Sit down and work it out. Stay with it. Breathe through the pain. Labor with it for the hours necessary to birth something brand-new. Gather it to yourself, and let it change you forever.
Pain is pain, regardless of how it settles on a person, and people who have experienced deep pain can often spot each other immediately. We peek over walls and connect at first glimpse of body language or restrained eyes or that slightly condescending, over-compensatory kind of interest that practically screams I know what it’s like to be hurt by people! It’s an unfortunate fraternity, an instant, uninvited, incomplete intimacy that’s sometimes refreshing, sometimes uncomfortable and unwelcome, but real all the same.
The wounded person’s recompense to a wounding world on behalf of their pain is often the balm that their own scars require, and is often applied recklessly, passionately, because deep wounds cut to the primal core of a person and it changes their eyes – the wounded person can never shake free of that part of the soul which glimpsed the world in animal black-and-white, and often, a person’s passions flow from that place. I think they’re often mistaken for darker emotions. And I think that, if you learn a person’s passions, you’ll learn their wounds, whether or not they ever speak them aloud, whether or not they want them known.
Sometimes we wounded can inflict more pain on each other than anyone outside the unfortunate fraternity, because we recognize the pain and need in each other, but in doing so, we can’t escape the vulnerability of knowing each other’s eyes, even with our own eyes closed. Maybe we can gently challenge each other with a little immunity because we know the landscape, but sometimes we only step gingerly around each others’ lives instead, not wanting to intrude, wanting even less to risk intrusion: so afraid to experience grace without truth, which is merely empty charity; to experience truth without grace, which is stark cruelty; or love with no grace or truth, which will always lack.
I don't think there's any way we can administer meaningful, painfully-refreshing grace to each other without knowing the truths of each other's lives. I don't think we can ever know each others' truths if we don't offer each other the safety of grace in which to unburden and know the tenuous headiness of new vulnerability. I don't think we can even care enough about anyone, without love, to offer grace or invest in truth. What real value do any of them have, separate from each other?
Grace is most manifest in the face of the piercing truths of the human condition, and joy unspeakable awaits those who delve deeply into the truth of what's in front of them. You find yourself there, in the truth – everything that’s missing, everything that aches, everything you hold at arms’ length, everything that swells inside your chest, everything that you were made for and the entire story of your life is waiting for you, in the truth. You find others in the same condition, in the truth. All of us tentatively sticking our toes into the depths, hiding from each other and ourselves, accepting empty grace like sugar on the tongue and calling it “nourishment” and "relationship," fleeing from bitter, unmitigated truths because they hurt us, and rightfully so. Hiding from real love because that's where the in-between tension resides: that's where the real work begins, and that's where the true rest is found.
The more deeply you delve into the truth, you gather to yourself more and more opportunity to administer complete grace to those around you. If you want to be a positive force in the world, you owe the world a complete picture of grace, love, and truth – and it starts with administering grace to yourself in order to embrace the truth of your own life. Beginning to end. The truths are bitter, but there is grace, and love really does abound. And the world has enough fakers.
I don't know the truths of your life, or to what degree you allow grace or love to interact with them. Sit down and work it out. Stay with it. Breathe through the pain. Labor with it for the hours necessary to birth something brand-new. Gather it to yourself, and let it change you forever.
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