Human Vulnerability...

Seems like it has been a long time since I last "penned" some blog thoughts - but it's only been a bit over a week. Much has happened in that time, and some healthy spiritual challenge and reflection has occurred. I caught up with my Christian Century reading last week and in the August 9, 2011, edition there is a book review that caught my attention. The book is written by Kristine A. Culp and is entitled, "Vulnerability and Glory: A Theological Account". It got me thinking about vulnerability as a key component in our health, wellness and wholeness.

As living organisms we are vulnerable to many "attacks". To put it in current computer terms, our physical "fire walls" are constantly bombarded by "hackers" which are intent on penetrating our defenses and causing havoc. Real viruses, fungi, bacteria, allergens, etc., in myriad shapes and sizes interact with our many layered defenses. Sometimes they penetrate and cause illness (the summer cold that is making its way around my house) and most often they are repelled effectively by both cellular and humoral defenders.

Though the worldly culture we live in will not admit this vulnerability, and will do everything in its considerable power to deny, we are all living inside bodies that will one day fail to carry on, and we will die. Even with all of our medical sophistication, still today the things that will do us in are our own self-destructive behaviors that break down our defenses, and the microscopic attackers that do what they are created to do. Even our cells are programmed to die once they have had a life cycle (the process of programmed cell death is termed "apoptosis") and if they do not, they become "immortal" and cause cancers. Thus we have a culture that denies the very core of who we are as living organisms, the fact that our bodies are frail and vulnerable and finite. Not hard to see how this leads to our communal dis-ease!

So how do we deal with this vulnerability as a reality - not as a weakness or in a negative light? Those of us who choose to believe in God see human vulnerability along with free will as God given attributes. Our vulnerability makes us need each other (and a "higher power"). We are called into community because of this innate attribute - no person is an island. Unfortunately, our current worldly narrative of rugged individualism and isolation flies right in the face of this key component of who we are. This sets us up to battle ourselves and our very natures. Loneliness is rampant precisely because we are created to be vulnerable and in need of one another. People die from sustained loneliness every day just like they die from anyother physiologic cause.

We have been created to be in right relationship with each other. To deny that is the cause of our most pervasive dis-ease as humans. Yet, we seem to be so far down the path of isolation that we don't even know our next door neighbors - and we're so busy that we don't create space to encounter them. One response to creating community might be found in a book by Peter Lovenheim entitled, "In the Neighborhood: the Search for Community on an American Street, one Sleepover at a Time". If you still have some summer left, I encourage you to read these two books (especially the latter).

Peace and community,
Dan