Lost and Found

Has it really been a month since my last post? Apparently. So where have I been? That's a damn good question...and I'm still trying to figure out the answer. I think I've been lost in my own head. It's amazing how easy it is to get lost in there - so many corners to explore, so many places to hide. I often wonder if other people spend as much time retreating to their own inner world as I do. Do others feel haunted by all that they haven't made sense of or are they able to somehow disconnect, dissociate or detatch from the perplexities involved in the circumstances of their own lives?

Retreating to my own inner world is likely a favored coping strategy. Journals and music have been the avenues most frequented as a means to this end. As I write I release the words discovered in these solitary places that exist in my mind. Music offers a maternal presence in the journey - it's where I find attunement - the tone of the music, the lyrics of the songs - they offer a mirror to what I'm feeling, they provide the language I'm searching for. It is how I've survived, how I've tended to the wounds that have never really healed.

Perhaps these wounds are left unhealed because in my best effort to cope I attempt to be the doctor and the patient at the same time. Early in my faith I was taught to believe that Christ was the Healer - that He, and he alone, was the One who could wipe away the tears, stitch up the gaping wounds, and tend to the swollen ankle causing an undeniable limp. It's been over thirteen years and I'm still crying, bleeding and limping. Does this reality reveal his lack of healing powers? Or maybe it is reflective of my weak faith and propensity to live entrenched in sin? Or maybe...just maybe...it has more to do with our skewed theology. Maybe healing isn't about the tears miraculously disappearing. Could it rather be about someone witnessing them, acknowledging them, knowing of what they reveal, feeling their power to drench and tracing their faint stain upon the cheek of the wounded.

I'm beginning to believe in the power of Imago Christi. As I'm attempting to expose the wounds to another, I am hoping to learn something of Christ's healing in a new way. But this kind of exposure feels foreign to me. It is not about suddenly ripping my hand away from the infected and grotesque wound in an effort to shock, frighten or push people away. It is about taking the hand extended and squeezing it while I allow her to remove the inadequate bandages placed upon the wound so long ago. It's about letting the tears fall in the presence of another. Letting her see the pain and bringing it out from the seculsion of my inner world so that I stop hiding in the lostness of it all. It's about recognizing that when someone is standing right next to me, it's easier to contend with the limp that may never fully heal in this life.