As a follow up to yesterday’s posting, I’ve been thinking more today about the gifts that come from embracing our neediness and leaning into our vulnerability. One of the main things I’ve gained from being forced to surrender to these realities is a passage way out of my unhealthy isolation and the discovery of true community.
A significant experience of this gift occurred several years ago in a small church meeting I was at facilitated by a local spiritual provocateur, Mark Yaconelli. There were about 20 of us in the meeting and Mark shared in our culture we are so willing to help others and yet so reluctant to ask for help. Giving help often is a way of exercising power over the ones being helped. He said if we really want to let people into our lives, we can start by sharing a need we have right now and ask if anyone in the group would be willing to help. Well you can imagine the stone-cold silence and fear that flooded the room. But eventually someone started, and we all in turn were invited to share a real need.
Being totally useless at fixing things around the house, I asked for help in unclogging some bathroom drains. Sounds simple, but it was a very embarrassing confession of my ineptitude. Michael, another man in the group and someone that I really didn’t know said he would help. When we got together to fix the drain, I shared I was desperate for some meaningless male companionship and just plain useless conversation. My job as hospice chaplain can get quite intense, and I really ached for ways to just blow off some steam. Michael said he was up for some meaningless male conversation and we began to meet regularly for a beer and just heckle each other.
Well, needless to say in the years since he has become one of my dearest friends and he was a great inspiration in the completion of my first book.
This is the main point of Kurtz and Ketcham’s classic, The Spirituality of Imperfection. They suggest if you and I sit down over coffee and share our success and triumphs, we’ll learn some things about each other, but we really won’t connect in a meaningful way. On the other hand, when you find someone you can trust enough to share your deepest fears and vulnerabilities with, you’ll discover you really aren’t alone and taste the soul nourishment of true community. A core principle of the whole Twelve-Step tradition.
It’s also a lesson I’m learning again this week. By being forced into receiving help from friends and colleagues due to the loss of our home in the Almeda Fires, the depth of those relationships has expanded exponentially. I’m learning again, to my great surprise, I’m not alone.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not fun, and it’s filled with the fear of rejection … but so far, it’s become a gift even fire can’t consume.