Topic: Reflections
Life cannot be read apart from its scars.
It tends to take very little for me to be annoyed with people and riding the bus to school everyday, as I have been recently, only aggravates the condition. In any event, I remember a person years ago who simply annoyed me. It is long enough ago and insignificant enough of an experience for me to not remember many details. However, I certainly remember being annoyed. I probably perceived him to be arrogant and impatient or perhaps rude in some way.
At one point in watching him I remember noticing a scar on the back of his head. Now this may well have come from his attempts show-off in front of people, but it made me pause. This is an important moment in reading, or in interpretation in general. A scar demands that we pause, that we withdraw our imposed judgment (interpretation) and remember that whosever voice we are trying to hear has already been imposed upon. A scar rages against our stereotypes and abstractions. This person, this text, is singular not manufactured. Recognizing our distance and our difference may remove those insulating readings which only fortify our beliefs.
Christ’s resurrection was complete with scars. His scars rage against any attempts to smooth or simplify his message. Sensitivity to scars allows our reading to respect the voice of our texts. It testifies to that elusive “third” discourse which allows boundaries to be crossed and understanding to occur.