a) the fear of knowing yourself

b) the power that it gives the person we are being vulnerable with

Being vulnerable, whether that’s apologising or confessing a fear, mistake or insecurity requires a level of self-reflection and it is terrifying to go into your own darkness.  By sharing that with another person we’re taking a huge emotional risk by placing this sacred piece of our soul in their hand. A piece that they may not know how to handle with care. A piece they can either be compassionate and gentle with or that they can totally break into fragments if they react in disgust or rejection to our vulnerability. So vulnerability is hard because knowing my own darkness is agonising and also because taking someone deep into that darkness means they can confirm our worst fear – that we’re too dark to be loved or worthy of love. And that is a kind of pain that can leave the most damaging of scars.

But I think there is also another part that we miss which makes vulnerability seem so dangerous and uncertain.

When I take someone into that darkness and I reveal a part of me that is wounded or hurting,  an unspoken level of accountability is forged. Especially if I deeply love the person with whom I’m being vulnerable with, which is normally the case, because love requires that I do whatever it takes to be the best for them. So it follows that if I am ready to share a shortcoming, I am ready to try to move away from it.

Most of the time, vulnerability in any relationship will happen when we’re apologising, trying to explain our actions to someone or trying to help them understand why we reacted in a certain way. It usually means that the very thing we’re being vulnerable about probably affects the person that we are being vulnerable to.

By sharing this with them and releasing it into the open and into the light, I can no longer say I didn’t know about my own inadequacies. I can no longer turn a blind eye or ignore it. More importantly, I can no longer hide from it because now another soul can see. I am faced with one choice – confront it, fight it and grow.

I think that’s an incredibly scary thing about vulnerability – more than the emotional exposure, it’s the place that the emotional exposure thrusts us. And where is that? A place that means we must choose to be different and change.

Vulnerability is hard because “despair is more comforting than hope.” In the pit of my own darkness I am free to languish in hopelessness and sorrow, but once I am vulnerable, whether I’m received with compassion or not, I have no excuse to remain in my tattered fig leaves rather than animal skin. The fear is that: ‘What if it takes me too long to change? What if they give up on me?’ This is when the shame creeps in and like our forefather, Adam, we want to run.

Vulnerability creates accountability and that’s a huge responsibility to shoulder.

Perhaps that’s why vulnerability can be much easier in retrospect, sharing wounds that have been and gone. Being vulnerable in the moment, being vulnerable about the very brokenness that still breaks you so well, really is the biggest risk. And here is the kicker: ‘What if, by revealing my shame or weakness, so that I may be known,  I’m actually giving them the reason to walk away from me?’

Maybe this is why vulnerability feels like weakness; not just because of the exposure but because of the position of responsibility it puts us in where there is no more space for blaming others and pointing fingers. I must own the story of my weakness.

Vulnerability doesn’t guarantee anything. It isn’t a miracle in a bottle. Yes, it is ultimately a risk that can leave us naked and alone, but without it we have no connection.

So there will come a time, when we think of the past; every single time trust was offered to someone in vulnerability and was irretrievably broken, when we think of the present, the people in our life we are called to love as our own soul and when we think of the future, the kind of love we want our life to profess and we are compelled to ask: “is vulnerability worth it?”

What if staying and being vulnerable with those trusted souls in our lives breaks our plan? Everything comes at a cost, and though waters may rise and vulnerability may fail us along with those we trust, if love is the fulfillment of the law, then there is no cost that is wasted. Nothing is wasted for love – may our souls never forget to wear this God-breathed truth like second skin.

Click here to read part 1 of our vulnerability series!

Photo courtesy of  Zachary Snellenberger

This is a guest post by a dear BFA friend and past contributor Sara Malak.

One of the things the world ingrains in us as we grow up is that we must be afraid -mostly of the future and everything in it. We hear “strive to be the best! Be as successful as you possibly can be under any circumstances!” That way we don’t have to worry about failure (the fear of all fears!) So we grow up with a million and one shields protecting us from anything and everything. We knock down those who are not as armed as we are and trample on those who are silly enough to walk unshielded. Instead of living as creatures created for the kingdom of heaven, we live by the rules of the animal kingdom.

But maybe this is why our communities, friendships, churches, and families are hurting.

As persons made in the image of the triune God, we long for intimacy and connection. But these walls we build for ourselves harm us by distorting our true identity. We have become so accustomed to striving to be the best that we refuse and deny ourselves to be anything less than that. We build walls so high as if our brothers and sisters are Greek enemies threatening to invade our glorious city, Troy. But sometimes these walls go so high that we can barely see what lies beneath them. Whether that’s on purpose or not, we end up hiding a bruised, swollen, and inflamed wound that continues to bleed.

Christ calls, “Adam where are you?” We may be hiding in shame and fear but Christ has not left us; He left His throne and became human so He could sit with us in our pain and tell us “be of good cheer I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). By taking part in His death we receive His victory. There is nothing to fear, not even death. The Church awaits the coming of the Lord earnestly and peacefully, we are taught to die to the old man that we may live forever. As we pray in Vespers in the litany of the departed, “there is no death to your servants but rather a departure.”

To take a step and “dare greatly” as Dr Brene Brown puts it, I would like to invite you to take the first brick down of your walls of protection, while I do the same. Let us take a step in crucifying our ego to become who we are created to be. Opening ourselves to Christ in humility, vulnerability, and love. Placing our heavy burdens at His feet when it is easier numb the pain.

C.S. Lewis writes:

When we assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled His sight. The change is in us. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view… By unveiling, by confessing our sins and “making known” our requests, we assume the high rank of persons before Him. And He descending becomes a Person to us.

Let us come and sit with our precious Christ. Allow yourself to unveil, to be the Samaritan woman sitting with the Man who met her where she went to quench her thirst for connection and intimacy. She sat with the all knowing, all powerful, all loving God, but His authority does not intimidate, it invites, and His words don’t condemn or belittle, they call upward.

Ask the Samaritan woman, she’ll tell you about a Man who told her all things she’s ever done yet didn’t define her accordingly. She’ll tell you about a Man who praised her honesty when she was trying to hide her shame in a few words. She’ll tell you how gentle He was when she desired to open up to Him. She’ll tell you about a Man who looked her in the eyes and loved her while everyone else looked down at her. She’ll tell you how all her life she’d been shielding and arming herself yet in a few moments stripped herself naked to be clothed in Truth. She’ll tell you how liberated she felt the moment Someone finally knew the shame, darkness and sins she carried yet loved her more than she’s ever been loved before.

No wonder she ran telling people to “come and see a man who told her all things she’d ever done” it’s not like they didn’t know, but now she was willing to reveal herself to her community knowing her worthiness and true identity.

Self revelation or self-awareness alone is not sufficient, I may not trust my distorted view of things but in the light of Christ, I am able to separate the truth of who I am from the lies I have been told about myself. Only in the face of Truth can we claim our true identity. It is this assurance and full faith that granted the Samaritan woman courage to see her darkness and still be able to claim her worthiness, acceptance and belonging in communal intimacy with Christ and then her community. In the light of Christ, our struggles, weaknesses and sins do not shame us or define who who we are but prove how lovable we are.

Hiding oneself from God creates an invisible disease that not only divides our communities, churches and families but also leaves us emptier than ever. Christ prayed “that they may be one as We are one,” while He embraced and exposed His humanity in tears and blood. If oneness comes by self-revelation that requires a great deal of honesty and authenticity, so let us start by being honest with ourselves and with our God until we are courageous enough to be so within our communities.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:19-21).

“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.”

The “Lord is between you and me forever.”
Samuel 20:23

The day you came beside me to sleep on the floor was Tuesday, July 21st. That was the day my summer burst at the seams. You let me in on the secret of friendship;

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

That night you didn’t see me with your eyes but you saw me with your heart.

To be friends with someone is to see courage where everyone else may see weakness. To be a friend is to see someone who is trying where everyone may see someone who should be better.

It is kind, soft words in a world where they run on short supply and where all you hear are the voices in your head that insist you should not be this way, that you are not good enough, and that the only solution is to keep trying harder, to never allow your weakness to show. But that night on the floor as I cried, you saw me as beautiful still, like the tears were water for a row of lilies to bloom. And you held on to hope for me as I felt my fingers loosen their grip and slip.

We need each other, vulnerable and exposed.

We need floor moments like these in friendship. To hold a mirror with one hand that reveals all the frailties and shortcomings, but to also hold out the other hand ready to go on this journey of healing with you all the way to the Father’s house; no matter how crooked or narrow the Calvary road becomes, all the way to the foot of the Cross – our God at His most vulnerable.

Friendship allows us to see our darkness and the darkness of others as a pathway to know the Father – not a barrier to his love. Perhaps He is not threatened by our darkness, so we no longer need to with each other. Perhaps our bleeding out with those who have earned the right to hear it is the best thing for our hearts – because then we can be filled with new Eucharistic blood.

That night you were a mirror to the parts of myself I spent so long trying to run from and pretend like they weren’t there because I thought they were too much to look at.

There is something to be said when someone is willing to make sense of all you are, your internal wars, your run-down castles, your expanding galaxies and your untamed, untrodden paths. What more do we want than to be seen, to be understood in a continuum where we did not want to understand or see ourselves for fear of what we would uncover? Yet, I tried to push you away, to shut you out with walls of silence and tears, with sitting away from you on the floor. And yet, that night you did not leave, but you chose to stay when there was nothing I could offer you. You chose to fight for a ravaged heart, so you lay on the floor beside me and told me words like streams to my desert soul:

That you love this broken girl.

There is something to be said of the marks people can make on another soul, the fingerprints they leave from where hands ran along the jagged edges.

To be a friend is a lifetime of savouring every sharp point, every rough texture as lost treasure. A lifetime of leaving marks that tell stories of staying together. Staying in summers and in winters too, even when they’ve been too cold. Staying when the birds have sung and the plants have been in bloom and when the garden has run wild with weeds and tall yellow grass. The garden of a soul is not yours alone, it belongs to a man’s friends. For it takes more than a pair of hands to pull out overgrown weeds and plant a row of sunflowers in the space where deep roots of lies spread. And when there is a storm, there is no fear to let the waters rise as you stand in the rain; in time the seeds friendship’s sown will grow.

The secret of friendship sounds a lot like a fight song at times…

We sing…

As we lie on the cold hardened floor of our lives, wrapped in the thick of darkness’ untidy death grip, I will not let you go. I will choose to see you with my heart and not just my eyes. I will choose to hear your words and your tears, and I will not be afraid to walk down into the garden you call wreckage. I will choose to write lovely all across your back until the lies no longer compare. I will ensure that you remember that “you are dark” always comes with the clause that “you are lovely”. I will bring to your remembrance that even the darkness will not be dark to you (psalm 139:12). I will choose to enter into your sorrow and suffering rather than demand that you deny yourself and enter into my joy. I will choose to fight to understand your every complexity, that I may grow to know and serve you well. And for every moment your heart screams ugly, I will choose to echo the truth right back in, beauty.

Because precious sister, love is a choice, and I will choose to love you, the way Jonathan loved David, the way he loved him as his own soul. I will choose to feast on the precious gift of friendship, where our souls may collide that together we may enter into His rest.

To be seen by you is frightful indeed. To strip off my layers, let you see me raw, let you see me whole frightens me to the core. Yet with your gentleness, all my fears halt to a lie, and I realise that you know me. To be known is to be loved, and you love me so well.

We are pursuers of each other, pursuing to know the depth and height of each other’s heart. I promise to know you. I promise not to laugh at you when you are naked and like Genesis 2:25, we will stand together, naked souls, unashamed. And I will not let my words become a hollow noise, but I will entangle this promise in the actions of my daily life.

Just when I think I have tasted the best of this feast, I realise, joyfully, there is so much more to learn. More knitting, more weaving of souls.

“The resurrection is coming.”

And with those words you fearlessly revelled and embraced my brokenness as the means to victory and wiped away any shame with hands that held me close. The same shame that I used to push you away from coming any closer because I did not believe you deserved to see this mess, you deserved better from a friend and you did not deserve to carry this sadness. Yet you called it an honour. You spoke life, love, truth and beauty into the deafening echo of brokenness.

Because of you, my true friend, I am not a victim of brokenness but rather experiencing redemption through brokenness. On the floor the fear made me want hide away from it. And on that same floor you made the broken beautiful with these words:

Do not be afraid or weakened by your darkness.

To be a friend is to let someone love you the way you would want to love them. To accept you will hurt them and they will be hurt by you whilst never forgetting the commitment you made to sacrifice anything to heal each other.

I will never forget that night on the floor when you came down beside me and met me at my lowest. When you were a picture of how hope does not disappoint because of the love that God has poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. You poured out your love in the broken girl. The girl whose every dry bone screamed “you’re not good enough as you are. You need to be perfect. Don’t give up…otherwise you won’t be perfect.” In your embrace, the dry bones cried “Live!” and the broken girl had a place to let go and belong.

As St. Ambrose says, a place to “know, O beautiful soul, that you are the image of God. Know that you are the glory of God. Know, then, O mortal, your greatness, and be vigilant”. In your arms I found a place of safety. A place other than perfection’s hostage image of all the ways I will never be enough – other than shame’s iron hold and ten-tonne shield. A place other than isolation’s secrecy and muffled silence, until I could see something other than every flaw and imperfection.

We all need help and perspective in learning how to love the broken girl within each one of us. We all need friends to see and celebrate our truest self – the broken girl who is actually more whole than she ever thought because she chose to endure, to be resilient and grow.

When I could not come out of hiding you came to find me. This is the feast of friendship. A halfway home ’till kingdom come. Till we shall feast anew and fully in the blessed kingdom of God.

“What I know about living
is the pain is never just ours.
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo,
so I keep listening for the moment the grief becomes a window,
when I can see what I couldn’t see before
through the glass of my most battered dream
I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.

So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin
don’t try to put me back in.
Just say, “Here we are” together at the window
aching for it to all get better
but knowing there is a chance
our hearts may have only just skinned their knees,
knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming

let me say right now for the record,
I’m still gonna be here
asking this world to dance,
even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet.

You, you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me.

Raising your bite against the bitter dark,
your bright longing,
your brilliant fists of loss.
Friend, if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,
my god that is plenty
my god that is enough
my god that is so so much for the light to give
each of us at each other’s backs
whispering over and over and over,
“Live. Live. Live.”

Andrea Gibson

Co-written with Makrina.