Wounded Heart

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This image is adapted from a photo of a tattoo... The original painting is on one of the albums by The Cure. I call it the Wounded Heart.

The wounded heart has just witnessed and experienced something horrific; an event or an impact that has damaged its neurotransmitters and opened an inner-eye of awareness, rendering it to be forever changed.

As I contemplate this heart, what comes to mind are the effects of the atrocities of war we are subjected to every day. Whether that war is national, global, ethnic, "terrorist", or happening behind our backs in the office, through parental abuse or neglect, or through the political arenas of our civilian lives as gross and unjust discrimination, we FEEL it. We SEE it.

We may not know it or participate in it directly, but we are changed by it. The wounded heart comes to us with a certain level awareness, one that gets carved in our hearts, leaving complex scars and deeply-resonant surges of pain, regret, guilt, even sado-masochism. Trends which may, for the most part, never get resolved unless we get professional help.

Many children growing up during the events of World War II, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the radioactive atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by America, are our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents today. (And let us not forget the "accident" at Chernobyl, in 1986...) These little children also grew up with comedy shows and "slap-stick" such as Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges... Where the characters were slapping, hitting, beating each other with sticks and/or running over each other with cars, trucks and ladders, essentially creating their "comedy" at the expense of someone else. Over time, we have come to see the consciousness behind this sort of humor is sadistic.

Children growing up in the 1940's quickly learned it was considered "cute" to be a pugnacious little brat. (Thinking this behavior is normal, we have also turned around and reinforced it in our own children. After all, we grew up with Bugs Bunny! Great cartoons, but cartoons, nevertheless, and often obnoxious.) Is Seinfeld a sadistic comedy? It has gone along in another vein, showing us how our self-interest can be stupid, vain, self-defeating, and also sadistic. Comedy and tragedy! What makes Jerry Seinfeld a great comedian is his background, and his sense of the absurd.

OK... My point is, some of these children from the Hiroshima Generation have never grown up.

Many often consider the need to get psychological help as being a sign of weakness. At the same time, we are dealing with an epidemic of Americans who are addicted to prescription medications. Not realizing people are often placed on these medications long-term (so they can die), they blindly trust their doctors - because their hearts are closed.

Their hearts are closed, and it is too painful to feel one's own feelings. (Feeling your own feelings would require you to wake-up.)

And we wonder why the hearts of our parents are hardened they way they are... Why it is, their eyes seem to be closed in denial to the pain of other people, and why it is that war continues and thrives to be the "norm". Living in an era where we have so much access to information and education, is it acceptable?

Is it OK to treat ourselves and other living beings as if we are disposable?

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Dear God,
teach me how to be wiser, act smarter,
learn more and open more
to new information, ideas and education.
Keep me from trespassing
over other living beings, intentionally or in ignorance.
Guide me to have the courage
to reach out for professional help.
Teach me how to walk softly
and move gently with this Wounded Heart,
Dear Jesus.
Amen.

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Sometimes I Don’t Know What To Feel
Lyrics by Todd Rundgren

Sometimes I don’t know,
I just don’t know what to feel.

Sometimes I don’t know what to feel...
Everything I thought that I knew
starts to look so unreal!
There’s a ringing in my head
that keeps me awake at night.
Sometimes I don’t know what is right!
Today I saw a car crush my little dog
under it’s wheel...
It did not even stop,
it just sped off - and out of sight!

Sometimes I just feel so afraid,
But I know that no one else has it made...
So if I just believe in myself -
I won’t need no help from nobody else
and I can make it alone.
And everything will be cool.

I got to keep on keepin’ on...
There’s nothing else I can do!

Sometimes I don’t know what to do!
Someone said the world’s going to end -
and I think it’s true.
I thought there was some love in the world
But I guess I’m wrong.
Sometimes I just feel so alone!
I don’t want to admit to my friends
that I feel confused.
I wonder what I’d do with myself
if the world was gone?
Something makes me stay on my feet.
Don’t you dare admit to defeat!

And if I tell myself it’s all right -
I can comfort myself through the night.
And watch another day dawn...
And everything will be cool...

c)Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp; Humanoid Music

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