Posts tagged wound

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The wound of the water.

“A fly cuts the surface of one full glass.  

I can see it - the wounding of the water.

“Yes…”  There. 


The wound of the water smoothes…fades…heals.”  

Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

…smoothes…fades…heals.  

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the wound of the water.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

An incurable wound.

“In order to arrive at the second half of life, one has to realize there is an incurable wound at the heart of everything. 

Much of the conflict from the age of twenty-five to sixty-five is just trying to figure this out and then to truly accept it. 

A Swiss theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905-1988), said toward the end of his life: “All great thought springs from a conflict between two eventual insights: 1) The wound which we find at the heart of everything is finally incurable. 2) Yet we are necessarily and still driven to try.” (Think about that for an hour or so!)

Our largely unsuccessful efforts of the first half of life are themselves the training ground for all virtue and growth in holiness. 

This “wound at the heart of life” shows itself in many ways, but your holding and “suffering” of this tragic wound, your persistent but failed attempts to heal it, your final surrender to it, will ironically make you into a wise and holy person. 

It will make you patient, loving, hopeful, expansive, faithful, and compassionate — which is precisely the second half of life wisdom.”  

Richard Rohr, Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

…removing the band-aid.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

No longer wound myself.


“I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me.”  Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas





 …a penance You do not ask of me.
 
 I have a GIVENNESS NOW to no longer wound myself.