Fourth, we are vulnerable because of the destiny that is given to each of us. Each person who walks through this world is called at some time to carry some of the weight of pain that assails the world. To help carry some of this pain a little farther for others is a precious calling, though it is a lonely, sad, and isolating time in one’s life. Yet often, when the suffering has lightened, you may glimpse some of the good that it brought. We are all deeply connected with each other. In some strange way, we all belong with each other in the unfolding and articulation of the one human story. Each of us is secretly active in weaving the tapestry of Spirit. When you see a Persian tapestry, it looks beautiful. Yet underneath, the tapestry is a mesh of various rough threads. Perhaps this is part of our difficulty in understanding the sore weave of pain that often sears our life. In terms of understanding, we remain at the back and see only the raw weave. Perhaps there is something beautiful being woven, but we are unable in this life to see much of the hidden aesthetic of pain.
Vulnerability is an infinitely precious thing. There is nothing as lonely as that which has become hardened. When your heart hardens, your life has become numb. Yeats says, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.” Though vulnerability leaves one open to pain, one should somehow still be ultimately glad of vulnerability. Part of our origin lies in the Darwinian kingdom of species competition and adaptation. Some instinct within us knows that we must be careful about exposure. We cannot let the heart be too easily seen, or we will get hurt. Everyone gets hurt. The extreme response to hurt is to close the heart. Yet to make yourself invulnerable is to lose something very precious. You put yourself outside the arena of risk where possibility and growth are alive. Vulnerability risks hurt, disappointment, and failure. Yet it remains a vital opening to change and to truth. We should not see our vulnerability as something we need to hide or get over. The slow and difficult work of living out your vulnerability holds you in the flow of life. It is great when we can learn to behold our vulnerability as one of the most important gates of blessing into the inner world. In giving love we are most human and most vulnerable.
In the Bible practically all the real points of novelty, change, and growth are related to points of vulnerability. When you are vulnerable, you are exposed externally; what comes towards you can really hurt you. When you are in harmony, you can take untold pressure. You can carry many burdens with grace. When you suffer, your sense of rhythm deserts you. Perhaps it is only then that you become aware of how deeply your life is normally blessed by unnoticed spontaneity. A natural spontaneity always holds you in the dance of your soul. When that spontaneity dries up, you fall out of the embrace and onto the rough gravel of deliberateness. You can no longer depend on your natural presence. When you really suffer, you learn the awful necessity of deliberateness. Even the smallest act must be willed, and it costs you disproportionate energy. It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. I heard this as a child, and it always struck me as quite incredible that one more straw could have such a destructive effect on the strong back of the camel. The last straw was surely no heavier than all the prior straws. It was the fact of the camel’s vulnerability and the cumulative weight of all the prior straws that were so destructive. When you carry a great weight of pain, you can be knocked over by a feather. Cut off from your spontaneity, it is extremely difficult to stand at all on your own ground. It takes a constant renewal of energy to hold yourself to your own routine. After a day of suffering, you are totally exhausted and empty, and most probably you cannot look forward to the ease of sleep either. The serpents of anxiety never sleep; they poison the innocence of the night.
