THE SCARS ARE THERE FOR A REASON

If anyone were to look at my unclad body (perish the thought), one would see very clearly two four-inch scars on my right hip and one on my left, the result of three hip surgeries. I also have one on my knee and another on my shoulder, each the result of surgery. Each also the result of some physical abuse on that body over the years. The scars, thus, are there for a reason.

Scars are reminders of the past and warnings for the present and future. If we ignore the scars, we are primed for more of them somewhere down the line. That is why I find it foolish, and I dare say wrong, for this obsession on the part of many to remove statues of former heroes (at least in the eyes of many) because they and their deeds were wrong. Removing the statues will not remove the scars. It will simply make it easier for the present and future generations to forget the lessons those statues are reminding us about.

My scars are a constant reminder that if I abuse my body, I will pay a price for it now and in the days (and years, God granting them) to come. Erasing the past won’t make the past go away but it will also lessen our abilities and even willingness to address the mistakes, sins, wrongs of the past and the lessons we have or should have learned from them. Those reminders of the past that many want to erase, those real scars on our history, need to remind us that we must never forget what happened and, most importantly, why.

As we have so often been told and have, if we are honest, experienced it in our own lives, that when we forget our past mistakes, we are set up to make them again and again. Those past sins, wrongs, foolishness have left scars on our personal and national psyches that will not go away as much as we might want them to or try to erase or forget about them. They are there for a reason.  

That reason, of course, is to teach us about how to live in the present and to try to ensure that the mistakes we made in the past are not made now and in the days and weeks and months and years to come. We certainly do not like to be reminded of our wrongful and foolish past because we believe it somehow lessens who we are in the present. But there is nothing wrong and, in fact, a blessing to acknowledge our humanness and frailness and, yes, sinfulness. That’s why those scars are so important, so vital, so necessary for us as individuals and as a society.

The saving grace about most scars is that they don’t constantly stare us in the face. Yes, some do and we have to live with the pain they are still inflicting. They are there to remind us of the lessons we have, or should have learned. As painful a reminder it is, Germany has not erased Auschwitz. That scar is a continual reminder of a sinful past and has made them a better country. All those scars in our personal and collective past are meant to do the same for us: make us a better person and a better people. There is a reason for them. Trying to erase them is foolish and wrong.