Naked vulnerability means that we are going to let otherness influence and change us. When we don’t give other people any power over our lives, when we block them by thinking we can stand alone, or that otherness can’t change us or teach us anything, we are spiritually dead. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 2, 2022
I find I need to stay very focused when I read that first sentence, or I unconsciously slip "not" in between "we are" and "going to." Egoic mind on the sneak.
"Naked vulnerability" is one of those phrases from which we instinctively recoil. On first hearing before thought connects, it has the sound of "caught with our pants down," and when has that ever been welcome to our ears?
The big ah-ha is the difference in the meanings of the two. With the first, naked vulnerability is an introduction to still more spiritual growth; with the second, the most important words are not pants down, but caught with...the definition of ego caught in its own snare.
Spontaneous vulnerability is the most attractive yet dreaded emotional attribute we have, according to me. Fear wants to block those words from forming, specifically, fear of the response such vulnerability will get...catcalls or hugs.
I'm almost convinced the human response depends on the spiritual nature of the listener, the participant actually, in our vulnerability. At any rate, stripped down human response either leans toward reliance on the hearer's spiritual bent or toward reliance on their own reasoning.
Slow lesson learned: Catcalls are the sliver of gold for the aware seeker, hugs are for those not "there" yet. There it is...the upside-down, inside out, who'd-a-thunk it? world of the Father...ever away from the reasoning mind to be lifted deeper within, higher.
Proof of the slow lesson not learned: When we don’t give other people any power over our lives, when we block them by thinking we can stand alone, or that otherness can’t change us or teach us anything, we are spiritually dead.
Thank you.
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