&&&’s Spring 2021 Issue: Entering the Wounds of Racism, Climate Chaos, and Covid-19
“Healing begins where the wound was made.” ~Alice Walker
Of course, there are more than three. Wounds.
Jesus had at least five: two in his hands, two in his feet, and one in his side.
Some count seven.
I find infinitely more.
Seemingly endless injustices and inequalities, compounding the wounds of racism, climate chaos, and Covid-19.
Grief upon grief.
Among medieval Christian popular devotions, still practiced today, is the contemplation of Jesus’ wounds, not as some morbid fascination with creepy lacerations, but perhaps something similar to the “infinity of space” described in Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way or in the “wedge-shaped core of darkness” in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.
Luminous-dark entryways into Mystery, if not into boundless depths of love.
Entering the Wounds: Healing Practice
As &&&’s “Yearlong Beaded Novena for Racial Justice,” with the Woman Clothed with the Sun, concludes on March 26, with our focus this month on “integral ecology”– social and environmental – we thank you for joining us to whatever extent you have been able and we hope to hear from you, by email or on our blog or Instagram, even if you only participated in part: what happened as a result?
We also invite you to join us in the following practice: from March 27 (Passover begins) to April 4 (Passover ends, Easter begins) – as a “bridging novena” into spring and as a possible ongoing practice, whenever we fear that suffering, our own or others, may exceed our capacity, as well as when we find ourselves unaware of, making light of, dull or numb to, or intentionally or unintentionally ignoring or minimizing the suffering in and around us.
That is, to enter the wounds.
What we may otherwise find unbearable, or omit, miss, overlook, or turn away from. And, to discover what may be found there. In other words, this practice is an inversion, of sorts, of the “Inventory of Wonders” suggested in &&&’s Winter 2019/2020 newsletter. Rather than inventorying what conspicuously calls for our rapt attention and effortlessly enlarges our hearts, in this practice we do the opposite - and share in our journals, in a work of art, with one who understands, or here, what we discover, and, most importantly, … what next?
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ~Maya Angelou
We also bridge this yearlong novena with a “memory of the future,” by rewinding fifty years to the release of Marvin Gaye’s spiritually, socially and environmentally conscious, prophetically critical and visionary concept album What’s Going On.
If you have a headset, we invite you to put it on and to listen to the album from beginning to end. If you are hearing impaired or cannot listen to the music for any other reason, we invite you to meditate on the song lyrics.
Hearing the cries of the earth
and the cries of the poor.
From the opening words to the reprise.
“Mother, Mother, ....”
Mama.
Mãma.
&&& dedicates this issue to Mother Earth, and to mothers and mothering everywhere, in thanksgiving for my own mother, Margaret Eileen Rehak, May 25, 1939 – January 15, 2021.
(Hands and Side painting by Carrie Rehak, inspired by John McDonough’s Stations of the Resurrection)