On Scars and Healing

a writing prompt for you + saving USAID and/or democracy

Welcome to Writing in Company. A special welcome to new subscribers from APCE—it was wonderful to meet you last week!

This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more.

When the world seems off kilter, as it does right now, using our words can help us stay centered. It can help us move through despair toward healing and wholeness as we remember, lament, wonder, and make meaning. Writing in company with others saved me once before. Let’s keep writing now, alone and together, and trust our words to help us say what matters.

With that hope, each week I share some of my words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

I just returned from an always-enriching conference in Memphis with faith formation leaders and friends. I heard memorable plenary speakers (Jeff Chu and Almeda Wright), worshiped with inspiring preachers, toured the National Civil Rights Museum at the former Lorraine Motel, ate at a famous BBQ restaurant, and shared writing time with new friends in a workshop together. As a conference, we wrestled with the church’s history, our present context, and how we might move forward in faith. Our guiding story was from Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with a stranger (an angel? God?) and walks away—limping but blessed.

It’s one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament: tricky Jacob—scarred and scared—determined to wrestle until a blessing is bestowed. As I’ve racked up my own list of bodily scars through trauma, Jacob has walked alongside me. A C-section scar from an emergency delivery, still weeping and oozing when our Jack died. Scars from breast cancer surgeries and reconstruction that still itch and pull. The fingertip that is numb from the blade of the immersion blender and a moment’s inattention.

The night before my trip to Memphis, I added another scar. I pulled a tray of roasted vegetables out of a hot oven, and brushed the back of my hand against the lip of another pan. My pain reflex kicked in and I dropped the tray quickly. It didn’t hurt much. Just a slight twinge. I ran some cold water over my hand, and kept cooking.

As the evening went on, a shiny line start to form, barely visible when I tilted my hand in the light. The twinge turned into a tiny pulse of pain when I touched my hand, but was otherwise forgettable.

By the next day the shiny line was still faint, but I kept irritating it as I packed for the trip. Every time I slid my hand into a backpack pocket, or past a zipper while folding clothes, I let out a little yelp of surprise.

Over the next few days, the line turned red and angry and a scab formed. Seeing old friends and meeting new people meant a lot of hand shaking and passing the peace with a grasp (and then a gasp from me.) I started avoiding handshakes and instead led with a nod or an elbow when I remembered in time.

My fresh wound made me wary of greeting people. I felt myself pulling away and making apologies. Wounds that turn into scars can separate us from others. But if we are patient, and find our people and our practices, our wounds and scars might also be the seedbeds from which healing—and even blessing—grow.

It took me five-ten-twenty years to wrestle with my scars from Jack’s death enough to find a blessing, and I am still learning. It took limping with others who also bore scars, comparing notes about them, and writing and sharing words that served as bandages and medicine. This whole Writing in Company project, sharing prompts and helping you and others write about what matters—grief, grace, gratitude and more—all of it is part my sacred story of wrestling and moving forward, limping yet also strangely, reluctantly, eventually, blessed.

Thank you for being part of the healing. I pray the same for you.

a writing prompt

Make a list of scars or wounds. Start with the actual, physical ones you carry.

Then, choose one and write more about it. Start by describing it. How did you get the scar or the wound? What’s the story?¹

Keep your pen moving, without stopping to plan or edit. Let your words flow and see what more there is to say.

Make Some Noise About USAID

If you’ve been following me for a while, you may recall that one of my sisters works for USAID. (In the few hours since I drafted this paragraph and publishing it, the agency has been decimated.) Her work, and the agency’s mission of human rights, development, and democratization have changed lives in multiple countries, and the United States is safer and stronger because of it. She and her colleagues and their families have sacrificed for our well-being, and for that of our neighbors around the globe, sometimes in hostile conditions abroad. Hostile conditions at home is shocking. The demonization of these patriots is unacceptable, and the destruction of the agency will cause irreparable damage on a global scale. Calling public servants like her and her team “radical lunatics” is dangerous and wrong. Already I’ve taken down my post naming her and her current role out of caution. If you are in the US, and haven’t yet called your representatives, please do it today. Tell them that USAID saves lives, uses just 1% of our budget, and preserves peace, democracy, and security. There are legal ways for an administration to adjust the scope and scale of USAID’s work, and this is not that way. Make some noise, if not about this issue, then about something. Find your representatives here.

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1. As always, if a story is too painful to write about today, don’t. Care for yourself and write about something else. But if you are feeling strong or curious enough, try writing past that initial resistance. That’s exactly where healing might begin.

Photo by Nong on Unsplash