“I believe that every issue we face – whether busyness, failure, shame, transitions – every issue is intended to lead us to God. Our tendency is to let our problems separate us from God and one another – but instead, they can become tools to allow us to deepen our spiritual lives, and to in turn change the world!”

—JANE RUBIETTA

The above quote is from an author whose book I am reading and discussing with friends. This quote spoke to me about how we should be living in community: sharing our issues and struggles with one another and with God. It is the vulnerability that produces growth. Vulnerability is another side of the coin of humility.

I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability. Having moved to a whole new community- new neighbors, new norms, new friends- in the last third of my life, I have had to be proactive in meeting people. It is not that easy for a private more introverted person. I have found the folks whom I have met to be so unpretentious and genuine. Not that where we used to live, were pretentious folks but there was a different feel to the environment. Here people take the time to say hello and to get to know you.

[Although, as I am writing this, I am reminded of a women I’ve met from here. She had moved from Maine to RI when she was younger. Her experience was just the opposite: she felt that the Rhode Islanders were very standoff-ish and unfriendly compared to the Mainers. Go figure.]

I am reminded of the story from Benjamin Franklin. The best way to make friends is to ask another for a “favor”. “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

It is not so much of the favor per se, but that in the asking, one makes oneself vulnerable. There is humility in asking.

Of course, we cannot go around wearing our hearts on our sleeves. And yet, it is important to share with others, when appropriate, what we are experiencing. Our trials are the foundations that builds communities.

And so I am trying. I remember my dad telling me that I shouldn’t let others know when I was down or out. I took it to mean that I had to show perfection, or at least to not share any problems with others. “Laugh and others will laugh with you. Cry and others will laugh at you,” he said.

Partly that was his generation of the stiff upper lip (although he was the more emotional one of my parents). Partly he was thinking that I would be protected from hurt, either through ridicule, teasing or general meanness.

I have come to the point in my life, that if I am to be bothered by ridicule, teasing or general meanness, it is the price to pay for genuine community and relationships, both with others and with God. I cannot say that I am entirely immune to comments, etc but as one ages, they become less and less bothersome. Or so I hope.

Emotional vulnerability is the glue that holds community together. It is in our sharing with one another that we build up each other. It also benefits ourselves. According to Psychology Today, vulnerability can ease anxiety, strengthen relationships and help one become more self-aware.

That self-awareness brings empathy. That empathy brings understanding. Understanding fosters grace. For if I recognize the hurt, shame, embarrassment, in myself, I am more aware of it in someone else and more likely to be tolerant and loving of the other person.

One of the great divides among people is the thinking that everyone else “has it together”, so that “something must be wrong with me” and the “I am the ONLY one” and therefore alone. Sadly the “perfect reels” of Instagram and Tiktok are deceiving. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most honest communities (like AA or NA) are the ones that fess up about the problems and issues and then move together towards understanding, accountability, improvement and healing.

A great example of community through vulnerability is the priest and author, Henri Nouwen’s story of the Daybreak community. The Daybreak community is a home in Canada for people with and without intellectual disabilities, part of the international L’Arche movement. Nouwen was priest there and lived among the community.

He tells the story of “Adam” and how it took at least a dozen or so individuals to care for Adam throughout the day and night. Adam was by all accounts, a “vegetable”. But this person, this embodiment of total vulnerability drew everyone together. For as Nouwen explained, the individuals were strangers before they cared for Adam. But after being part of Adam’s care team, they were now friends/family. Community was built via the vulnerable. Click here to hear an excerpt of Nouwen talking about Adam.

But more than the above, emotional vulnerability brings us back to God and to being open to God working in our lives. God longs for us to share with Him our fears and failures. To be honest and vulnerable. It is then that we can be open and receptive to what God is doing in our lives and to where God is leading.

Jane Rubietta is right. Once we are open to God and to others, there is nothing that the bonds of community cannot do.