I have been resisting writing this blog. Why? The short answer is in the title, a line from Brené Brown whose work I will say more about in a moment. Here is what unfolded. Two weeks ago I was preparing for a monthly spiritual support group I facilitate at Emmanuel College, in Toronto. In the previous session I had given participants a short article to take away and think about. At the end of it was an oft-quoted prayer by famous contemplative Thomas Merton. (The complete text below[i]) Merton begins: “I have no idea where I am going.” Before I could get on with my planning for the group session I needed to write my own prayer/poem based on that line. I will offer that in a moment. I decided that as our opening I would invite them to check-in with a line personally adapted from Merton’s prayer. I read them mine. As each person shared, the depth of honesty and vulnerability created profound sacred space.
Two days later I was facilitating another monthly spirituality group and we watched a fifteen- minute video featuring author Brené Brown title “The Price of Invulnerability” In this video and also her book The Gifts of Imperfection, she states that we are losing our tolerance for vulnerability. She writes: “Vulnerability is at the core of fear, anxiety and shame, but it is also the birthplace of love, joy, belonging, creativity, and faith.” While she is American and specifically speaking to her culture, what she says also pertains to Canadians when she says we are the most “numbing” people in the history of civilization. We are loosing our capacity, individually and as a society, to be vulnerable. She states “faith minus vulnerability equals extremism; spirituality is inherently vulnerable. In vulnerability we find what gives life purpose and meaning.”
I resisted writing this blog because I fear – my prayer poem tells what I fear. In The Gifts of Imperfection Brown writes that courage is one of the most important qualities that wholehearted people have in common. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.”[ii] I invite you to take Merton’s poem or any other that speaks to you and write your own. Here is mine.
Holy one,
I have no idea where I am going.
I’ve been here before.
It is just as painful as the first time.
I cry out – nothing!
Why did I think it had happened for the last time?
Why do I think You are not here this time?
Why is my trust so weak and my doubt so strong?
Why am I so, so human?
Did Mary, Jesus, Joseph and Abraham have such doubts?
I’m tired.
I’m tired of feeling I have to justify my existence.
I’m tired of being dependent on the approval of others.
I’m tired of taking my worth from what I do and not from you.
Do you love me despite my crazy self-doubt and deep insecurity?
Or do you love me because of them?
Oh me of so little faith.
Holy One, could I have a little more?
Lastly, this morning I read these lines from Richard Rohr: “God hides, and is found, precisely in the depths of everything, even and maybe especially in the deep fathoming of our fallings and failures.”[iii] As you move into and through the darkest and often difficult time of the year, don’t be afraid of your fallings and failures. You might be vulnerable enough to fall into moments of peace and joy.
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[i] The Merton Prayer In Thoughts in Solitude, Part Two, Chapter II consists of fifteen lines that have become known as “the Merton Prayer.”
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. © Abbey of Gethsemani
[ii] Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let God of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Hazelden, Page 12,
[iii] Richard Rohr, Falling Upward; A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Josses-Bass, page 95.
Thanks Anne,
I can relate, so thanks for your own vulnerability. We’re “supposed” to know where we’re going, aren’t we? I remember a line from the wisdom of Solomon, something like “Wisdom meets us on the path”. It doesn’t say, “Wisdom shows us the path”. Sometimes all we can do is keep on keepin’ on.
“Sometime the best maps will not guide us,
You can’t see around the bend.
Sometimes the road leads to dark places,
Sometimes the darkness is your friend.
Today these eyes scan bleached out lands
for the coming of the outbound stage
Sooner or later,
We wind up pacing the cage.
Bruce Cockburn, Pacing the Cage.
Thanks Bruce for the wisdom quote and for the Cockburn poem. I invite readers to check out your blog at http://www.ifdarwinprayed.com
Anne
Here is a poem by David Whyte that came to my mind when I read your post.
FAITH
I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises;
over cold snow, night after night,
faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
slither of light before the final darkness.
But I have no faith myself
I refuse it the smallest entry.
Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.
thanks for this Ioana. A beautiful poem. Anne
Thank you for the wonderful article, Anne.
I believe vulnerability to be such a beautiful thing! One question that arises for me is: “And how deeply vulnerable is the Divine?” And, believing we are created in the Image of the Divine, I trust we have a spiritual responsibility to embrace our vulnerability, for there lies the cornerstone of our beauty, the depth of our joy and the immense gratitude of this gift called life.
Merci!
Viv
And such an important question you have asked Viv. thanks for it. Interesting to ponder with the Christmas metaphor of birth of a child – a human child, most vulnerable! And so can be the holy birthing that happens in us. thanks for reading and commenting. Anne
may i be so courageous as to travel my life with the vulnerability the Lord asks of me, and to remember that I am not asked to do or give more than my vulnerable being is able to. vulnerability perhaps a piece of me that renders my being to be with gentleness, compassion and a host of other desireable qualities.