See My Scar? Where is Your Scar?

 "Hey, don't you worry about it Chief, Its not permanent. You want to see something permanent? Ba-ba-boom, Heh heh heh."  The movie Jaws has Quint and Matt Hooper comparing scars as the Police Chief Brody doesn't have the scars that measure up. 

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This the world we live in, we are always measuring who has the biggest or most scars. We do it with all things: our physical wounds, our battles, our income, our family turmoil, our historical wrongs, our psyche, our spiritual wounds, our grief, our internal damage. Who has the biggest scars? The Japanese sure have some big scars, after all they had the bomb dropped on them. Not just the bomb but two god-damned bombs. Can you imagine the scar that has been left? The Jewish population has at least 6 million scars and no one can deny that is a huge scar. The African Nation has some big scars as well; from having people stolen and sold in slavery to having their lands raped by greedy colonizers. What a large number of scars there for sure.  We hear the stories and are shown the scars. 

There are whole nations with so many scars, and there are individuals with many scars as well. There are the people who have faced violence, been raped, been tortured - physically - mentally - spiritually, have been killed. They have scars. So with all the scars, who has the most? Who has suffered the most? I think it depends on who is showing the scars. With Chief Brody in the Jaws movie he tried to look at his own scars when the fisherman Quint and the scientist Hooper were busy outdoing each other with showing their scars and the stories that went along with those scars. I share my scars and measure them against other people's scars as well. With grief; the loss of a Mom, a Dad, a Brother, a Son is a scar. We measure our grief against the grief of others. All different types of scars are measured. We see other folks with scars; the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. The Black population being killed over and over again by the police force. The many people who are seeking refuge in the United States, in Canada and in Western Europe; they will show you many different scars. The 26 million refugees that exist right now throughout the World, will show you different scars. 

Today and the following days we will be bombarded (no pun intended) with stories about the scars the United States of America has to show. The US is reminding the world about how seriously they were wounded and they have the scars to prove it. They will show you and tell you how horrible it was to get the scar. They will also tell you they have come out better because of the wounds and the scar will always remind them of how strong, how tough they are. 

The United States of America suffered a major wound in September 11, 2001. The wound came by way of an attack from the sky on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville. There is a song written about the Attack, entitled "where were you when the world stopped turning?" The message is of course about the scar and it is quite possibly the worse scar ever to have happened. It is the biggest scar from the modern United States population's point of view. Now ask an Indigenous person who has had their land occupied by the Americans and they will tell you about and show you different scars. Ask the African American and they may have different stories and scars to show you. I mean 400 years of being whipped, chained, punished, raped and owned could do that. 

There is no doubt the Twin Towers collapsing and the death of 3,000 people was tragic, horrible and awful. Is the biggest scar in the world? We all have our own scars and measure them with our own scales. We can appreciate their pain when they are showing you the scars. We hope they also understand there are many people out there carrying scars as well. We are in a battle of who has the most scars and the one who is winning is the one who has the biggest media presentation.