Sacred Wounds

February 2024

Many, if not most of us, have at one time or another had a dark event interrupt our lives: a sudden loss of income, divorce, or death of a loved one, a dream that died, an unexpected illness, a profound sadness, or an accident that turned us sharply left on our road of life.

And from this we were transformed. We come to regard this as a bitter pill, or as a profound gift.

Poet Mary Oliver once remarked,

 “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” 

If it is indeed a gift, much depends on our friendships, family and support, plus our own heart. The heart intuits when there is more going on than we can perceive, a deeper, wider presence at work in us beyond our understanding.

Some of us would call that faith in God. Some, like Mary Oliver suggests, a gift. For some, it could be both. We can come to regard the pain as a sacred opportunity; a dark, disturbing event that became precious and positive.  

My own story took place a little more than 25 years ago. In the late 90's I came back from Nashville after losing an argument  with the US government, and I felt my life had finished. My dreams were gone and I felt like I was walking on a razor's edge so that, with one wrong move, my family and I would be on the side of the road.

In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last  Crusade, there’s a scene when the bad guy shoots and critically wounds Indy’s father, forcing Indy to enter a dangerous booby-trapped cave to retrieve the holy grail that will heal him. Indy has to recount biblical precepts to gain admission. The bad guy then tells Indy with great gravitas, “Now is the time to ask yourself what you believe.”

That line followed me for a year or so as I tried to find my place in my now dreamless world. I had to ask myself honestly what I really believed. The future of my life and my family depended on it.

What I didn't know then, at that low point in my life, was that I would come to bless this event in my life. So much so, that I didn't want the wound to heal. I was on my way to something essential. Somewhere, something in the wound was necessary for my growth as a human being, and my faith in God’s ongoing presence and mercy.

I was part of a much bigger picture in contributing to this world, rather than preoccupied with the world contributing to my dreams and me. This was not an overnight revelation, but a gradual dawning that my faith in God was self-referential and self-interested. 

Buddhist teacher and author Pema Chödrön alludes to this when talking about obstacles to growth, “…nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.”

And within that period of suffering, that arduous facing of oneself and one’s empty desires, our surrendering becomes a sacred journey. So much so that we come to think we can’t live and move without it.

And then one day without thinking, without trying, the struggle either subsides or slowly disappears.

Remember, in the midst of our journey with our sacred wounds:

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, (…) will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

“God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Ps. 147:3)A

Blessings,

Roy

 *Roy Salmond is a audio producer, working out of his studio Whitewater Productions, in Vancouver Canada. He was also a podcast co-host, (family360podcast.com), and is a speaker and writer, penning the weekly arts and faith blog: Between The Notes. He is also a Partner with City in Focus. Roy is starting a podcast on Sacred Wounds, and setting up a landing page on CIF where people can share their stories about their own experiences of sacred wounds. If you're interested in participating, email him at roysalmond@gmail.com