Vulnerable, Connected

This last week I walked into City Market the day after watching my cleaning business melt before my eyes. I had been so consumed with work that I had barely kept up with the news and the urgency of the COVID-19 situation. I knew there were shortages, but the empty shelves at the grocery store still brought about a nauseating anxiety. I immediately remembered moments in my life when I was stocking up on boxed mac and cheese for the kids just after receiving my month’s allotment of food stamps or my latest check. I revisited a few times that I was hungry and too proud to ask my family for help so I could buy more groceries. I was struck by how the last few years of relative security had allowed me to distance myself from these memories. While I have always felt the privileges bestowed on me by my nationality, race and birthplace, I have tasted the fear and anxiety that come with being in a materially compromised state in this country.  Standing in that grocery store, I felt scarcity again and was overwhelmed.

After buying a few things I sat in my car and thought about all of the people who have lived their lives without the security of a good job; renting homes or apartments while praying their rents don’t go up and fearing their shelter might get sold out from under them. I thought about the fear and shame that comes with being unable to provide enough for your kids. I allowed myself to further imagine those people who are living in or who have fled countries where people are isolated and quarantined by war. I thought about the images from refugee camps and immigration detention centers. From my incredibly safe and beautiful parking spot in the middle of Steamboat Springs, I reached out and felt the truth that human beings have suffered scarcity, isolation, insecurity, anxiety and fear every day. I have experienced some of these things myself, and this is what I have taken to heart:

The most direct path to compassion is to allow oneself to experience the suffering in your own life as one of the primary sources of connection to other humans. We all suffer; we all experience fear and insecurity. The vulnerability that we are all feeling now is a powerful means of connection. This is not just an opportunity for us to reach out and save those who are more compromised than we are, but it is an opportunity to admit that we are all vulnerable and compromised. In this admission, we align ourselves with Christ who is forever aligned with the vulnerable. In fact, I believe that from the Divine perspective we are all equally vulnerable—it is our awareness of this that allows us to experience connection with the Divine.

This moment of global instability is an opportunity to explore the places in ourselves where social and material security have perhaps impeded the spiritual work of deepening our vulnerability and opening our hearts to the truth of how precarious it all is. This is the moment when we look to those who experience scarcity and vulnerability daily, to teach us how to live in a state of uncertainty. Our own faith traditions are full of the writing and teaching of mystics and contemplatives who chose to place themselves at the heart of material vulnerability and confront the risks of exposure to contagious diseases, war and poverty. I am not suggesting that we are all called to the radical exposure of St. Francis or Mother Theresa; only pointing out that what they learned and experienced is useful for us—a source of great comfort and hope in this time.

Finally, one of the primary reasons I hold on to my Christian faith is the experienced reality that in silence and isolation I have nothing to fear. Where many people may experience time alone in a house in the middle of nowhere as isolating and scary, I have found it to be a source of great Peace. We carry deep within us this knowledge of a Love that is available in all moments and circumstances. Through our practices we are reminding ourselves that this Love is not just experienced between ourselves and other humans, but also in our connection to nature, the animals we know and love, not to mention the connection we experience in prayer and worship. We are a people that can simultaneously carry an awareness of fear and vulnerability and an awareness of Grace, Love, Peace, Joy!

This morning I stepped out into falling snow and felt comforted by the fact that the weather patterns and the trees on my little acre are seemingly unaffected by all this chaos. I was grateful. I said Thank You. I hope that we can all experience these moments more and more as we reach deep into the heart of our vulnerability. I pray that we are humble enough to recognize that there are those among us who live with this vulnerability all of their lives, and that we can draw strength from their strength. Finally, I pray that in this time of increased separation and isolation, we can identify with those saints who chose isolation and found God in the Silence.

In Grace, Love, Peace and Joy,

Christian