The Scars We Keep: A reflection on Music, Inherited Stories, and The Choices We Make

 

Some songs find us at just the right time.

During the summer of 2025, while on sabbatical, my daughter June and I took a trip to my home state of Vermont. Having grown up there, it was a chance to return to familiar places, reconnect with a part of my story, and enjoy some time together. One night, we found ourselves spending the evening in Middlebury, a beautiful Vermont town that has played a significant part in my journey, where I was excited to discover that a concert was happening on the town green. We had stumbled into a performance by a duo we had never heard of before: Ordinary Elephant.

What began as an unexpected stop on our trip became one of those memories that stays with you long after the vacation ends. Looking back, I see that evening as a sacred moment in my journey toward standing in the Messy Middle for those who are marginalized and overlooked.

And then there was the music.

Since that night, Ordinary Elephant has been on repeat across my music apps. Their songs have a way of getting under your skin, inviting you to listen more closely and sit with what you hear. But one song has stayed with me above all the others: Scars We Keep. I honestly think these are some of the best lyrics I have ever heard, read, and sang loudly on subsequent road trips.

When I listen to Scars We Keep, I hear a song about the stories we inherit, the prejudices we learn, and the scars that shape how we see ourselves and others. It makes me think about what happens when we carry the wounds and assumptions of one generation into the next. For me, the song raises an important question: Do the things we have been taught have to determine the people we become?

That message reaches into the heart of the Messy Middle.

I know something about messy inherited stories. I grew up hearing things about people who were different from me, and there was a time when I carried those attitudes into my faith. I have held convictions so tightly that I failed to recognize the people being hurt by them. In. my life I have had to face the truth that good intentions do not erase the harm we cause. Grace has not asked me to pretend my past never happened. It has invited me to tell the truth about it and allow God to change the way I live.

That is what moves me about Scars We Keep. It reminds me that our upbringing matters, our wounds matter, and the things we have experienced help explain who we are. But they do not remove our responsibility for who we become. We may inherit the scars, but we still have choices to make about what we pass on.

For me this is the Messy Middle, the space between the person we have been and the person we are still becoming. It is where we learn that changing our posture toward another person does not necessarily mean abandoning our convictions. Sometimes it means allowing our convictions to be shaped by the love Jesus told us should guide everything. It means asking whether the way we treat our neighbors reflects the grace we claim to have received.

There is something especially moving to me about the song's closing images; I hear in them the hope that we can recognize the harm we have inherited and choose not to pass it on unchanged. We cannot rewrite our beginnings, but we must take responsibility for what comes next. We can listen, learn, repent, and make room for a different story.

I never expected that an evening concert on a familiar Vermont town green would introduce me to music that would continue to challenge me long after my sabbatical ended. I certainly did not expect that one song would give such clear expression to something my God has been working on in my own life for years.

We cannot always choose the scars we carry, but we can choose what we do with them. We can use them to justify our fear and build walls around people we do not understand. Or we can let them deepen our compassion and teach us how to love our neighbors more faithfully.

I am still learning, still being challenged, and still striving to open my eyes and heart to anything that is hindering me from being the advocate for justice, peace, and inclusion I am committed to becoming!  I am eternally grateful that, on a summer night in Vermont, June and I stumbled upon two musicians whose work continues to remind me why that journey matters.

Thank you, Ordinary Elephant, for the music, the poetry, and the reminder that the stories we inherit do not have to be the stories we pass on.

Listen and learn more

Listen to “Scars We Keep” by Ordinary Elephant: https://youtu.be/-8FjAOBilnA

Ordinary Elephant's official website: https://www.ordinaryelephant.net