Vulnerable

I texted this quote to a friend of mine recently, and she quipped back, “You read really challenging things.” She wasn’t wrong. I’ve been slowly reading my way through Scott Erickson’s beautiful book Say Yes: Discover the Surprising Life beyond the Death of a Dream. When I read this line, it resonated with me deeply. Not in that comforting, cozy kind of way, when we read something and feel seen or uplifted. It landed like a punch:

“What needed to die in your dream, your envisioned ideal, was a version of you without vulnerabilities.”

Scott Erickson, Say Yes: Discover the Surprising Life beyond the Death of a Dream

So much of the time when I get angry and frustrated with God, isn’t really about God not providing or not following through. Instead, it usually has a lot more to do with wanting God to provide in ways that protect me from discomfort. I trust that God will care for me, both practically and emotionally, but what I would like to demand of God is that this happens in a way that means I don’t need to be vulnerable. I want God to provide and I want it to feel good the whole time. 

At a minimum, there is a part of me that is sure that if I stretch myself, if I put myself out there in a vulnerable way, I should be rewarded for it. Don’t I get bonus points of some kind? Or at the very least, shouldn’t I get to experience some kind of instant payoff for the risks that I’m taking? When I say it out loud, I know it isn’t realistic. It sounds a little whiny to my ears. There are no instantaneous rewards for being vulnerable most of the time. In fact, I think it is actually true that we’re always vulnerable, we just don’t often choose to admit it. Vulnerability is a human fact, but it is a reality that I can’t stand the sight of for all that long. I would really rather hold on tight to my false sense of security, thank you very much. I would much rather believe that I am invulnerable and safe than be in touch with the fullness of my vulnerable humanity.

So much of what I rail against God about is this— that God is so often asking me to see things as they really are and find God’s very self present and at work there. But this requires taking off so many layers of the false security that I shroud myself in. And to be honest, life does that for me often enough without me doing it on purpose. So why would I choose it? What is on the other side of it that makes it worth the risk? Some days, I struggle to find an encouraging answer. On other days, I can recognize that it is part of being fully alive, fully engaged as my whole self. 

We talk a lot in our culture about “feeling alive.” Maybe we seek thrilling experiences, or travel, or the headiness of new relationships. Maybe it’s delicious food, or cool new stuff. When we say, “I feel so alive” it is almost always a good thing. But what if that adrenaline, that rush, that sense of happiness or excitement, isn’t the entire content of feeling alive? Feeling sick is an alive feeling. So is feeling sad, or hurt, or confused. It is all a part of what it means to be alive and moving through the world in our bodies. When we say we want to feel alive, we don’t really mean the full scope of aliveness, do we? We usually mean a very narrow slice of it, and we’re confused when we can’t make that little slice (as great as it can be) into the whole experience. Being vulnerable is necessary to being alive. To be blunt, to be alive and in the world comes at the risk of not being alive and in the world. It is something that we cannot shake, though we are usually pretty talented at ignoring it. 

But if being alive is a gift, and I do believe it is, then all of our aliveness matters, vulnerable parts included. When we ask God to take care of us in a way that doesn’t ever leave us feeling vulnerable, we are asking to erase whole parts of our existence. We’re asking to live small, and to hide in unreality. But let me tell you what you already know, reality isn’t always an easy pill to swallow. We can only peek through our fingers at it for so long. But somehow, mysteriously, I really do believe that is where God lives. I believe that expanding our capacity to face that reality has something important to do with being fully alive. Honestly, I don’t know that I’m very good at it, and most days I would rather choose the comfort of my illusory safety. But I am learning to wonder more and more what the gifts are on the other side, what about God and being alive in this beautiful and difficult world I might be missing when I hide.