“Courage (from latin: coeur): to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”

Connection with others gives purpose and meaning to our lives. It’s how we were created. Even on a physiological level it’s how we’re wired neurobiologically.

Too many of us have been conditioned to respond, “Good. How are you?” to the disingenuous but seemingly obligatory question of “How are you doing?” as we pass by an acquaintance. Side note: I actually had someone say “Good. How are you?” in response to me trying to mix things up and say “Hey man! It’s great to see you!”

Too many of us long for deep connection and intimacy but don’t want to take the risk required to expose ourselves to build the mutual trust that makes relationships worthwhile.

Too many of us prefer to numb ourselves to grief, shame, and disappointment but don’t realize that we are numbing joy, gratitude, and happiness in the process.

Where are those who desire to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ

who willingly hung naked on a cross for the world to see
who willingly asked us to come and touch His wounds
who took a risk and gave Himself up knowing that some still might reject Him

You see, vulnerability is not weakness. It is the most courageous thing you can do. To let ourselves be seen.. to let ourselves be known. For it is only when we are fully known that we can be fully loved.

Let us love with our whole hearts even though there’s no guarantee. Let us lean into the discomfort of exposing ourselves knowing that to feel vulnerable means that you’re alive. When you ask the questions,

“Can I love this person this much?”
“Can I believe in this as passionately?”
“Can I be this fierce about this?”

do not give into fear but know that this is what it means to be alive.

Let us not try to make uncertain things certain; let us have the courage to be imperfect; let us not pretend but rather present people with the most authentic version of ourselves.

Let us dare greatly and learn from failure when it comes our way instead of avoiding it by not trying at all. This is the only way to grow.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Let us follow in the footsteps of our Maker:

God takes risks. The Incarnation of Jesus was perhaps the greatest risk ever taken… God shows His true greatness when He shows His ability to be weak. To condescend – to get down on our level – is the way God makes Himself open to us. And by doing so He makes Himself vulnerable (Fr Meletios Webber in Bread & Water, Wine & Oil).

By His most human action, an action which expresses all the weakness and impotence of our created nature, Christ shows Himself to be God. The profundity of this puts one at a loss for words (Fr John Behr in The Mystery of Christ: Life and Death). 

Vulnerability is not weakness. It is strength. It is power. It is love. It is truth.. and it is truth that sets us free.

“True love is borne out of true vulnerability, and true love is humble enough to be rejected, to be crucified, to be killed. However, we need to go through the cross to get to the Resurrection and we need to go through vulnerability, through the risk of being rejected if we hope to reach the sort of relationship and communion that come from being fully known and fully accepted.”

I sit close by my sister; yet not close enough, for the Atlantic lies between.
I hold out my hands as she drops word by word into these palms.

She says, he shot himself while driving on the freeway.
She says, all I ever thought was how he had his own friends, how he never needed me.
She says, you know I wish I wasn’t so obsessed with myself.
She says, what if I had been there, what if I had listened?

I watch a beautiful woman cry in the arms of my mother. I watch how my mother gracefully listens, pours out love all over her, holds her up with the truth of who she is. And I realize, my mother’s hospitality was never just an invitation into her home but an invitation into her heart.

I think of dark nights that I have known, dark nights of tears and demons of despair, and the faithful friend who has held the broken girl in me. How she listened silently to my every word, let her own heart break for my sadness. In those dark hours I am known, in those dark hours I am loved.

Amidst the cries of a multitude of people longing for more than superficial friendships, longing to be known to their core, longing to be loved, I marvel at how we are made; with all the auditory apparatus we need that we may take in the spoken thoughts of one another.

We are made for more than just acknowledging the sound waves of each other.

We are made with the ability to listen.

We are made for this kind of worship.

It is only through listening that we come to know others. It is only when we know others that we can love. Because listening is an invitation, it is welcoming the story of another into our heart. To be welcomed without an agenda to change or manipulate, without judgment or need to prove wrong or right.

When we listen as friends, we listen as the curious lovers who want to unearth the roots behind every statement, who want to examine the frames hanging on our walls like an exhibition and who want to read between the lines of every story. When friends take the time to listen, they see that we are all just stories. And in each of our story there are great tragedies and great adventures, great romances and great heartbreaks. The beauty of the story is that there is no right or wrong. A friend listens to let the story unfold, that they may understand. A friend listens that they may ask the right questions, the questions that no one may have dared to ask before.

Tell me, where does it hurt the most?

Tell me, why do you feel this way?

Tell me all the words you never said to him but you wish you could

And the most important questions a friend can ask:

What do you need from me right now?

What did I do today that made you feel appreciated?

What did I say that made you feel unnoticed?

But without listening out for the pauses in the story, the place where one chapter ends and the other chapter begins, the sentences that were just too hard to complete, we will never learn how to ask. When friends forfeit the task of asking, as if the answer we will hear is the next world wonder, then we forfeit the gift we could give each other, a gift we all need. The gift of knowing there is no answer I must carry alone.

Friendships begin only when we choose to invest, only when we choose to listen. It is only when we listen do we learn to ask, to search, to dig to find the diamond in the rough hiding in each others unknown caverns. Friends are the ones who remind us how to shine once again after years of burying it deep.

When we approach friendships as a means to appease our boredom, as a quick fix of temporary excitement and pleasure, we fail to establish deep, meaningful connections. And we are made for more than isolation, we are made for connection.

What stories do our friendships tell of us?

Are we fabricating tales of hearts experienced in the art of walking away when the knowledge of another gets tough?

Do our lives tell the tale of humans who merely co-exist in each other’s space, humans too self-focused to listen?

“Friendships create a beautiful tapestry of love.”
– Henri Nouwen

Or are we creating beautiful tapestries of love?

If I were to ask you, who is your closest friend? Would you answer me, “no one”?

Why?

“For, in good truth, a friend is more to be longed for than the light; I speak of a genuine one. And wonder not: for it were better for us that the sun should be extinguished, than that we should be deprived of friends; better to live in darkness, than to be without friends. And I will tell you why. Because many who see the sun are in darkness, but they can never be in tribulation, who abound in friends. I speak of spiritual friends, who prefer nothing to friendship. Such was Paul, who would willingly have given his own soul, even though not asked, nay would have plunged into hell for them. With so ardent a disposition ought we to love.”

– St. John Chyrsostom