It doesn't matter what your skin color or skin tone is. It doesn't matter whether you work at a bank or at a McDonald's. It doesn't matter if you are straight, gay, bisexual, or transsexual. It doesn't matter if you're a genius, or developmentally disabled. It doesn't matter if you are bipolar, schizophrenic, clinically depressed, or highly anxious. It doesn't matter if you can't walk or if you can't hear or if you can't talk. It doesn't matter if you've got a hot temper, or a taste for booze or gambling, or if you've been an adulterer or a thief.
God loves every one of us, just as we are and where we are on our life journey. What matters to God is that we believe in God and are trying, day by day, to let God into our hearts and into our lives. God doesn't need uniformity. God doesn't need perfection or wholeness. God just needs our willingness and our love for God and for people! If God sees that our heart is open to love, God will empower us to be God's instrument for good in this world.
We human beings are diverse and various in so many ways. Yet, one likeness cuts across the differences. No matter who we are, we are wounded, fragile people. We are all in need of healing. Our hearts shatter the first time we walk into a hospital room and see our loved one with a tracheotomy or a feeding tube. Our hearts are pierced by a sword if the people around us consider us "abnormal" or "socially inferior" and so either obviously or subtly edge away from our company. Our hearts turn to stone if people stone us with their eyes because we have sinned. Our hearts die when we stand by a loved one's coffin.
But it's when we feel the most imperfect, empty, wounded, and useless, that God can pour His power through us to touch others. I've spoken to people who've had to be hospitalized for a bout with mental/emotional illness, yet their most cherished memories are of being able to heal others in a hospital support group through their words of comfort, understanding, and encouragement. I've spoken to people who discovered in a bereavement group or in their church communities that, even at their saddest, most tormented moments, they could find within themselves the loving energy to hug and comfort another. And, it's in these times of reaching out to heal others that we begin to be healed ourselves.
These miracle moments of being able to give others light, comfort and hope when inside we feel lightless, empty and hopeless can strengthen our faith. They are proof positive that it is the Spirit of God operating in us when we feel as worthless as clay pots. St. Paul said it well:
"It is the God who said, 'Let light out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this knowledge in clay jars (our fragile, wounded human natures) so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 4: 6-10.)
Grayson Warren Brown, internationally known African American liturgical composer, author, and speaker, discovered in a small inner-city parish how much his wounded people living in a war zone needed hope. So he went to the treasure trove of ancient pre-Civil War spirituals written by slaves, words of trust in God that gave them hope even as they carried in their bodies the death of Jesus: their slavery, the punishing work and the beatings by slave owners that often led to their deaths; the soul-punishing racism that could lead to spiritual death. Brown re-worked the lyrics to one spiritual and composed these words:
"Been so busy, praising my Jesus, I ain't got time to die....
He woke me up this morning, and started me on my way:
I been so busy praising my Jesus, I ain't got time to die."
Those slaves, literally living in a hell devised by their slave masters, understood that the power of Jesus in their souls gave them the courage and hope to go on, to say flippantly with sass: "I ain't got time to die!" To say with raw courage: "I refuse to spiritually die - even if I feel empty, hopeless, unable to love, the power of God inside me won't let me down!"
Even when our physical bodies have limited life, even when we feel burdened and empty because of "differentness," imperfections, wounds, and disabilities, the life of Jesus may be made visible in our bodies. Our bodies can convey the healing, hopeful power of Jesus working within us through our faces, words, listening, and touch.
A very frightened Sr. Helen Prejean, feeling very inadequate but impelled by the Holy Spirit, promised Death Row inmate Patrick Sonnier that she would accompany him when he went to the electric chair. She told him that when he was strapped to the chair, injected with the lethal solution, waiting to die, he should look at her face: "That way, the last thing you will see before you die will be the face of someone who loves you." Isn't that a gift we can give anyone whom we really listen to and accompany in their lives? Isn't our attitude of love saying "In your bitterness and anger, in your sickness, watch my face and there you will see the face of someone who loves you." (Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in "The Holy Longing.") We don't have to be perfect to do this. In fact, it helps to have scars to understand and help heal another's wounds.
All of us are wounded by shame. Shame because we know that in our immaturity and selfishness, we have hurt the innocent. Shame inflicted by others because we are different, or of a different economic class. Shame because we have developmental disabilities or we feel weak because we've developed physical, mental, or emotional illness. God's love alone can and will take away our shame! God's loving Voice in our souls says to us "You are my precious, beautiful child. I love you because I know your heart, I know your soul. You are mine forever."
Noted spiritual writer and priest, Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen, a man beset by anxiety and depression, who felt shame most of his life as he grappled with his homosexual orientation, finally was healed of his shame by experiencing the profound love of God. He knew God loved him for exactly who he was. He said
"When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers....."
Edwina Gateley, theologian, poet, artist, single Mom, who has ministered to street people and prostitutes, portrays God saying these words to all of us:
Hope
Even at the gates of hell,
Believe in redemption.
Let my grace and power work,
When you have none.
It is only for you
To believe and to trust.
Be confident.
Trust.
Love.
Do not condemn.
Believe,
In the face of unbelief.
Hope against hope.
This is faith.
This is the gift most needed
For those who have suffered
So deeply, and lost all.
You must manifest love and hope.
It is only then
That my people will begin to
Believe in themselves.
(Edwina Gateley, "I Hear a Seed Growing")