The Nature of Hurt

One way or another, we have all found ourselves, to varying degrees, smitten by the harshness of others. Very often, this can feel like a gunshot wound i.e. life-threatening. Indeed, in many ways, this is true. When we are bleeding out, what concern is there for others? When our dignity is attacked, what happens to us, as we are not ourselves, at these times? Hurt makes us narcissists, we are drained of life, and those who hurt us often do not change how they see us.

The image of bleeding applies, in that, unjust condemnation robs us of our life. When life is taken like this our only priorities are 1) to stop it, 2) to prevent further injury, and 3) our assailant is fair game for “any means necessary” (on an instinctual level, this is morally egregious, and we will see why). Those who attack us with words and false judgments tend only to see us for our detritus (misconceptions, hurt, sin, etc.), and their condemnation of the detritus is correct, but the failure is to see us beyond it. It is important we receive the truth but reject all else. Sometimes the detritus they see in us is only visible to them because of the hate they have for their own detritus. As such, it will take quite a bit for them to stop seeing us for our detritus, and because of our being hurt by them we will constantly struggle to see them as more than the detritus they reveal to us in their distaste for us. We will also struggle against the belief that if I am hurt because I choose to love, therefore, I should stop. We cannot let our fear hold us back from love. The danger lies in believing the lies presented.

In conclusion, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”[1] We cannot imagine everyone to be free of detritus, because that is the nature of being fallen. Rather, we must account for our fallen nature in not only loving ourselves but others as well. If God did not see past our detritus, He would have stopped loving us from the beginning. Rather, knowing the whole of our existence, we are able to comprehend the dilemma we and others in our lives have answered wrongly, growing our detritus and theirs also. We too must comprehend the source and nature of both their detritus and our own if we are to experience healing. Perhaps one day, an authentic conversation may allow each of us to share this healing with them. If we are to love as Christ has loved us, we must see past their detritus. Is it not right and just that we would love, with the same love which we are loved to not hoard the courtesy extended to us? We love ourselves in these situations, it is important that we are aware of what is true and that we accept what is. The cross for us is exactly this:

1. They feel hurt and isolated, moving them to attack those who is not.
2. We are hurt by them and in them of retribution we can seek to return the favor, take it out on someone else, abuse some other created good to cope, or in the name of taking up our cross, receive the attack and offer it in union with the cross understanding this cycle.
3. If we instead of taking up our cross, seek to incur or worsen injury, bestow it on others, or in other (delayed) forms upon ourselves, the already negative sum total decreases further.
4. If we are hurt seeking healing in Christ and choosing to forgive, becomes a moral necessity without which reality plunges into an infinite regress, a circularly logical justice recourse loop. This reveals 1) the role of mercy in restorative justice, 2) the nature of salvation as not something abstract, 3) every sin is social, 4) the world is hurt by our sinfulness and helped by our holiness, and 5) the role in this recurring chain of abuse the passion and death of Christ reveal and absorbs.

“For your sake, we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
They compass me about, my enemies’ throng.
What can I do, torn asunder? Will I love or will I falter?

Still, you bless me in spite of my foes,
Your grace and love are in steady supply.
What takes my life is distrust in you, not my woes.
“For Jerusalem’s sake, I will not be quiet”, lest this world goes more awry.

What difference is there in life and liturgy?
I seek Your will and bring me to the altar.
I sin trying to save myself, and in misusing it, I lose liberty.
There is nothing better for me than to be sacrificed with you on the altar.
FN:

1. Romans 8:35

Written by Carter Carruthers