Divine Plagiarism

You must have a wound if you are to be healed of it. If you want somebody to stay wounded, convince them that they have no wound. Pain tells us that we are wounded. De-legitimize their pain, and they won’t be able to get the wound healed. In the bad old days, people used to poison the tip of their sword with an anti-coagulant. The sword would cut its victim, but the wound could not form a scab. It would just keep bleeding. We do the same when we de-legitimize the pain of someone we hurt. They can only stop the bleeding by burying the wound under layers and layers of bandages, or by fixing a tourniquet on that part of our heart, cutting it off to stop the hemorrhage. Either way, the wound never really heals.

This poison comes in different forms. Some are direct: ‘I never did that,’ ‘if you feel that way, it‘s your own fault,’ or ‘why don’t you quit being a big baby and just get over it.’ Some use nicer words, but just as cruel. ‘you’re a nice person, but I’m not a part of your issues with me.’ Emphasis on ‘your issues,’ the ‘me’ being an innocent bystander. ‘You made this train wreck happen. I just happened to be there. So its still, really, all your fault.’ With even more subtlety, ‘I am sorry you feel that way, I am not sure what role I had in it.’ Here, the English language offers us a very convenient sleight-of-hand. We use the same word ‘sorry’ to describe both ’apologetic’ and ’sympathetic.’ We are sympathetic to the victims of a train wreck. We should be apologetic if we had a part in its coming off the tracks. It is the same thing again: ‘I was not a party to your pain. You are wrong to tell me that ‘I hurt you.’ Really, ‘you hurt you.’ So quit trying to drag me into it.’ De-legitimization robs us of that critical first step toward healing, that recognition that ’you hurt me.’ Only after that realization can we forgive, and only after we forgive can we be healed.

We must learn to see the pain through the eyes of the other. We are usually blind to the ways we hurt others, and it is often only though their eyes or their words that we can understand the impact of our actions. I know that my first inclination when confronted is to sympathize and then explain how I am not at fault. Only by being on the other side of this response have I learned how cowardly it is. If I had just been a jerk to them, at least they would have known to dismiss my accusation and seek vindication from Someone better than I. May God forgive me and heal those I have hurt. Anything that happens in the context of relationship involves both parties to that relationship. This is about taking ownership and taking responsibility, not just for our actions, but also for their impact on others. Our choices create collateral damage. We must take responsibility not only for the intention of the act, but also for its consequences. Probably, if the other is coming to us for an apology, then they have laid down their hatred for us, and are setting out on the path of forgiveness and healing. We should not hinder them with our pride. A note of caution. There are those who use their pain as a weapon, a means of manipulation. Just as the beggars in Jerusalem, there are those who pick the scabs of their heart as a means of getting attention or power. So we should be as innocent as doves in handing out apologies, but as cunning as wolves before acceding to any demands for restitution. Guilt trips have cost many an honest person their honor. Apologies are free. If the other is in earnest, they will then move beyond the apology into forgiveness, the wound will be healed, and the and the thing will be laid to rest.

A good friend of mine told me a story the other day. It seems that a guy who had hurt her five or six years ago ended up calling her up to apologize for ways he had hurt her long in the past. She said that the pain of the wound had long past by that point, she and him were even friends again. Yet, she felt vindicated by the things he said. She forgave him, and the thing was not spoken of again, but the apology was still crucial. I remember her saying ‘it proved to me that I wasn’t crazy to feel hurt by what he did.’ In apologizing, he legitimated her pain. He told her that she was right to say ‘you hurt me.’ And in her forgiveness, they were reconciled. Praise God.

We still believe that ‘time heals all wounds.’ It doesn’t. Time may provide more objectivity, a better perspective on things than when in the passions of the moment, but time cannot heal. We think that it heals because we think that forgetting is the same as healing, and time helps us to forget. I can walk with a limp so long that I forget that the limp is even there, but that is quite different from being healed of the limp. So we buy into this ‘Eternal Sunshine’ idea of healing, that when we get enough distance we can just leave it behind. But we never really do. Like in ‘Hitch,’ where the guy and girl are finally honest and vulnerable with each other, they don’t talk about people who hurt them last year. For both of them, it is some little thing from their youth that haunts them. Forgetfulness does not heal us. Jesus does. Only He can reconcile broken hearts to broken hearts.