The other day I told a personal story in a meeting at work. Now I have to write an apology. The personal story was really not appropriate in that context. The group is grappling with transition in our leadership. Instead of moderating I took "sides". Duh. I told the story for the emotional impact (when all else fails, use a sucker punch). That is manipulative. There is no excuse for me to leave the anchor of my life mission and values that sustain it. The "emotional hook" was baited and I bit. I reacted out of my reptilian brain. Now I have to confess my complicity in the discord of that moment. It would be easier to pretend to be righteous.
All is not lost, however. At the end of the meeting one of my colleagues (and I for the life of me I can't recall who it was) asked me how I handled being that vulnerable before a group of colleagues. I was distracted so I gave some insipid answer. My apologies to you friend. To stop and talk would have been more genuine and I didn't. Another confession. However, his question lingered in my consciousness all week. Perhaps that lingering is a redemptive. Redemptive or not, it drove me to jot some thoughts here.
All is not lost, however. At the end of the meeting one of my colleagues (and I for the life of me I can't recall who it was) asked me how I handled being that vulnerable before a group of colleagues. I was distracted so I gave some insipid answer. My apologies to you friend. To stop and talk would have been more genuine and I didn't. Another confession. However, his question lingered in my consciousness all week. Perhaps that lingering is a redemptive. Redemptive or not, it drove me to jot some thoughts here.
In my personal "research" about on how we use personal life story narratives, I discovered quite accidentally that ministers are wonderfully skilled listeners. When it comes to sharing life stories, many of us clergy types pull cloak ourselves with the veil we call "Reverend."
Maybe I share too much of myself. And, like the other day, share at the wrong time and out of warped motivation. On the positive side, however, those with whom I am closest are those with whom I am most vulnerable, the most open, and by implication the most open to being hurt and loved. These are my closest friendships, several of these relationships are decades long.
Maybe I share too much of myself. And, like the other day, share at the wrong time and out of warped motivation. On the positive side, however, those with whom I am closest are those with whom I am most vulnerable, the most open, and by implication the most open to being hurt and loved. These are my closest friendships, several of these relationships are decades long.
Connecting some spiritual "dots" I began to think that community cannot exist without vulnerability. Maybe that's why I do dumb things like I did last week. It was a kind of backward attempt to draw us into community during a contentious moment (so much for good intentions). I am not a stellar example of being in community, either. I'm better fitted to the hermitage than the village.
That's the point, however. I need to be in community. Our trinitarian God is a community within Godself - perichoresis - a "circle dance" of intertwine relationship and being. The image itself is ancient and now is lifted up by quantum physics as a dance that seems to extend to all of creative order that dances and vibrates in living organic energy. The Father risked vulnerability in Jesus. In that vulnerability I find my completeness. In risking vulnerability with you, "the other," we have the potential for completeness in community. Perhaps this breaking of community is the "original sin" of the Garden of Eden scripture narrative. Redemption and forgiveness create potential for reconciliation - community.
That's the point, however. I need to be in community. Our trinitarian God is a community within Godself - perichoresis - a "circle dance" of intertwine relationship and being. The image itself is ancient and now is lifted up by quantum physics as a dance that seems to extend to all of creative order that dances and vibrates in living organic energy. The Father risked vulnerability in Jesus. In that vulnerability I find my completeness. In risking vulnerability with you, "the other," we have the potential for completeness in community. Perhaps this breaking of community is the "original sin" of the Garden of Eden scripture narrative. Redemption and forgiveness create potential for reconciliation - community.
Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together that God "hated visionary dreaming." I know that I tend to see myself as the "visionary dream" of what I think I am and what I think I know about myself . In community I am vulnerable because I learn what you see and what you know about me that I don't know (maybe that's why I prefer the hermitage). In our life story narratives we have an energy, a potential to weave community redemptively in the weaving of our lives. We trust our woundedness with another as a sacred trust making community holy ground.
Quantum physics demonstrates that nothing makes sense in isolation. Relationships are everything. We create sense and meaning through our interaction with others. We tell our life stories to others because in so doing we create meaning that gives us new life. I suppose we could postulate that the church does not make sense in isolation. Yet, we certainly try hard to keep ourselves hunkered down in our protective bunkers sometimes, don't we?
Quantum physics demonstrates that nothing makes sense in isolation. Relationships are everything. We create sense and meaning through our interaction with others. We tell our life stories to others because in so doing we create meaning that gives us new life. I suppose we could postulate that the church does not make sense in isolation. Yet, we certainly try hard to keep ourselves hunkered down in our protective bunkers sometimes, don't we?
As leaders, we ministers can model vulnerability. I have no formula for that. You'll have to screw up and learn just like I am - even in my "mature" years.
Bob Anderson
Bob Anderson
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Sharing of ourselves is risky business. Yet ministers are called to be that transparent. Keep sharing. As a part of the community - I would feel very badly if I missed the experience of you.
ReplyDeleteVulnerability IS risky. Every time we open ourselves up we risk exposing our brokenness. Yet this life would be so shallow if we didn't take the risk. In the end all we have are our relationships, everything else will pass away. Heaven is all about knowing and being known, in the fullness of the Hebrew sense, not in the limited intellectual sense of our Greco-western worldview. For the present, as we negotiate life on this screwy planet, there is grace.
ReplyDeleteIn an valiant attempt at being "non anxious presences" we interims can lose sight of our own human-ness. There is, I think, a need to connect via story, and sometimes those stories expose us. I, for one, valued studying with Bob at an interim training event because he was himself. If we can't tell our own stories (interims, called, designated, et. al.) then there will be no stories. Speak it brother.
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