The Map Of Scars

I dreamed of my daddy last night, which was unusual. I rarely dream of him, probably because I didn’t really know him at all, having only seen him less than forty times in my life.

In the dream, I couldn’t see Daddy’s face clearly. This has been a lifelong pattern for me. So often, I will look someone full in the face in one of my dreams but the face will be blurred or occluded in some way. I can see the person from the periphery of my vision, but a direct gaze will immediately blur the center of my dream-vision. It is like mercury, forever running and shifting away from me, unable to be held.

There was a moment in the dream when I wasn’t truly convinced that the person before me was my father. Then I looked down and saw a scar on the back of his hand, a scar that resembled a three inch-long segment of barbed wire. The sight of the scar comforted me, and I knew the man was Daddy. This was interesting, because I do not remember ever seeing this scar on my father’s hand, but in the dream it was a bona fide verification.

When I awoke this morning, I jotted down some notes of the dream, wanting to preserve the memory because I have great difficulty remembering my dreams unless they are particularly frightening or sorrowful. After writing down the already-fading memories of my dream, I said and wrote my morning prayers. While the pencil was moving across the page, a thought entered my mind.

I thought of Christ the Lord as he showed his hands and torso to His followers after His resurrection, the fresh scars of His holy wounds confirming to the traumatized band of disciples His identity. And then I thought of the section in the gospel according to St. Luke where Jesus appeared to some of His people on the road to Emmaus. You will recall that His followers didn’t initially recognize Him, and that only after He sat with them and broke bread did they recognize Who was sitting among them. This is similar to the Fourth gospel’s account of how Mary didn’t at first recognize Jesus near His tomb.

And then I thought of the prophetic Passion verse in Isaiah 52:14, where the English Standard Version renders so clearly,

As many were astonished at you— his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

As a teenager, I used to ponder this verse quite a bit, being deeply moved and troubled by the idea of a person being beaten so badly that he no longer resembled a human being. And sitting in the cool, dim air of the morning with my pencil poised above the composition book, I wondered if at least part of the reason Jesus was not easily recognized by those close to Him was not just because His resurrected body was glorified, but also because He still bore the effects of the savage beating administered to Him, just as He still bore the evidence of the spike and the spear.

My own scars are important to me because they remind me, and remembering is a sacred duty.

This morning, my heart is a grateful heart. I was able to remember at least part of a dream, and I was able to sit in silence and sift through my thoughts as if panning and awaiting that moment when a gleam of gold leaps out at the eyes.

~ S.K. Orr