A parable for our times?

A few years ago I had a wound that wouldn’t heal. It started as a tiny boil on my shin. I assumed the eruption was a spider bite, covered it with a band-aid and tried to forget it.

Then the little “bite” darkened, started to hurt worse.

Next it swelled up and turned angry-red. By now I had a quarter-sized wound that was hot to the touch, excruciating.

At this point I finally went to the doctor and discovered I had contracted MRSA, a bacteria that is resistant to certain antibiotics. (I’ll spare you the visual. You’re welcome.)

I fought any suggestion of draining that wound, though everyone who looked at it told me it was the only way it would ever heal. The idea of a blade touching that thing sent me into the stratosphere.

Instead I tried everything else. Antibiotics. Hot compresses. Charcoal. Essential oils. Chewed-up plantain leaves! I spoke to the wound, asked it to please please please just let that infection go.

I began to think I would have to live with a grotesque open wound forever.

Needless to say, it did not drain on its own. After almost a month, I finally went to a wound specialist who briskly prepped the area for lancing.

It was as I thought: Lancing a wound hurts.

Yeah it really, really hurt. Blood and pus rolled down my shin. Awful.

And that wasn’t the end of it. The wound was deep. Necrotic tissue had to be cleaned out in a process called debridement, which amounts to vigorously rubbing a Brillo pad over the wound (or that’s what it felt like anyway).

But that open wound could even not begin to heal until the nastiness and dead junk could come out. The wound had to be expressed. Only then could my flesh begin to rebuild.

Maybe it’s like this with the body politic. I don’t know if this is a good parable, but what if… ?

What if … in this time which I like to call the Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs, we are at the very early stage of expressing the wound, readying for some deep inside-out healing?

Photo by Jordan Small, via Flickr Creative Commons

Our country was founded on some fine ideals, but it was also founded on slavery and genocide. Horrific wounds.

The infection has always run under the surface of this country. Those of us who live with a measure of privilege, because of our race and/or class and/or gender status etc., have been able to ignore it.

Or maybe we think that covering it with band-aids will be enough.

Or maybe, like some in power, we actively move to put salt in the wound while simultaneously denying its existence.

Meanwhile people of color have never been protected from the ugliness that festers.

It’s painful to see that ugliness brought to the surface in racist words and deeds. Is it possible that this dangerous deterioration of public discourse is (at least partially?) about facing up to our collective past? That we are on the cusp of finally cleaning this wound out so our collective body can heal?

Of course, I’m not at all sure this “last gasp” isn’t the start of horrors beyond belief. But I imagine that is largely up to us. A wound can get reinfected if it isn’t properly tended to. The growth of new tissue happens slowly, in raw and tender layers.

A metaphor that only goes so far, but perhaps has some usefulness.