Vulnerability

I just began to put something together for myself this evening regarding some anger I have been feeling, that has really been bubbling over for me. I have become very aware of the feeling I have been having, but not real aware of the why it has been happening. Suddenly, in reflecting, the word vulnerability kept surfacing. I have experienced a great deal of vulnerability lately and I am responding out of anger about this.

I feel particularly vulnerable with regards to my illness, as on any given day I may not always know how I will feel.
I feel particularly vulnerable with those that I love. Relationships move, they change and they evolve. This is normal yet I seem to be very resistant to that out of fear. I fear that I am not all I need to be to sustain relationship with those around me. It is a stupid fear, yet a fear I feel never the less.
I feel particularly vulnerable in this supervisory education process. I worry more than I need to about my ability to do it and not enough time just spending the energy toward learning about myself and allowing the process to lead me where it needs. I'm just in the first inning of a very long game.

Even the theology I'm attracted to at the moment is a reflection of the "self-emptying" "vulnerable" God. My vulnerability is even coming out in my theology. I even see it in my potential educational theory, personality theory, etc...

In other words, vulnerability, my own vulnerability, is taking center stage in this drama I am beginning. Understanding my vulnerability may help me understand this anger that is bubbling up for me consistently. Rather than running from my vulnerability, maybe I need to figure how I can run toward it and embrace it.

Next week, I am having lunch with Dr. David Jensen, a theologian at Austin Seminary who wrote "Graced Vulnerability: A Theology of Childhood." I am looking forward to that lunch as a way to articulate on a different level this feeling of vulnerability and how to utilize it as a minister and as an educator.

My vulnerability, ironically enough, may indeed serve as my greatest strength if I can learn to embrace it and myself in the process. It is perhaps the shame of my own vulnerability I am angry about. This is something to be explored much, much more.