vulnerability

i'm not really sure where this post will go... hopefully someplace good, as i process... wish me luck! and feel free to comment.

i've been thinking about vulnerability.
it all started with class. i'm taking "culture and transformation" with sherwood lingenfelter. he wrote "ministering cross-culturally", a book i read when i was in my missions training program i did almost 4 years ago. (he was actually an influence, albeit a small one, in my decision to come to fuller.) anyway, in his class, that book is required reading, so i pulled it out and re-did the cultural values profile. dr. lingenfelter has identified 6 areas that our cultural values are on a spectrum:

time orientation vs event orientation
dichotomistic thinking vs holistic thinking
crisis orientation vs noncrisis orientation
task orientation vs person orientation
status focus vs achievement focus
concealment of vulnerability vs willingness to expose vulnerability

in terms of cross-cultural ministry, Jesus was a perfect middle of all of these traits. as people who cannot be separated from our culture, we fit somewhere in these spectra, but often our "target" culture is on the other side of the line. we need to be aware of these issues and adapt to them.

i loved reading this book, and it helps me to understand people around me. for example, a co-worker of mine back in VA is very people and event oriented. as a co-worker in an environment where tasks and efficiency in tasks is a high priority, i was completely annoyed. but once i was able to recognize that he wasn't just lazy or careless, i had a lot more patience with him and was able to see his strengths. he really made customers feel valued and at home, a skill i was overlooking in my impatience with him.

but back to vulnerability. when i read this book a few years ago, i didn't give this area much thought. i hadn't even read the chapter on vulnerability before i began to use this concept to describe (to myself) my frustration with a friend. i knew i was frustrated and hurt by this friend, but i hadn't put this label on it.

i am definitely a person who exposes my vulnerability. actually, the way the book describes it culturally, i'm more middle-of-the-road, but in friendships, i am quite vulnerable. i prefer to be open and not hide what i'm thinking or feeling, sometimes to the detriment of the situation (my face doesn't lie, what i'm thinking is always written there!). actually, when i initially took the survey, i was on the other side of the line, but a lot of that has to do with being humbled into exposing my weaknesses and sins instead of trying to hide them.

i had a blog post up a week or 2 ago that i wrote on a day i was in a particularly bad mood. i don't mine telling the world how i feel, and i had no problem posting it and being honest with my frustrations and sadness over recent circumstances. a friend here at fuller happened to come across it that day, and she admonished me to be more careful, to not reveal too much of myself on my blog. honestly, i was a bit offended, because i am usually quite aware of the publicity of whatever i post. i had been thinking earlier in the day, however, that despite the fact that i didn't feel i had done anything wrong or over the line, my post still wasn't beneficial to anyone in any way. so i took it down.

back to my friend. besides my many sins and great selfishness in my friendship with this person, i am hurt and offended by their lack of vulnerability with me. not necessarily in the ways described culturally in the book, but in my friend's personal life. i know everything couldn't have been peachy-keen with my friend, but rarely was/is it exposed. i know a lot of it has to do with personality, on both of our sides, too, that it isn't merely a cultural values issue. and again, in our conflict, i certainly acted in a sinful way that didn't help the matter at all, so perhaps my friend had no reason to trust me with any level of vulnerability.

and i do see the irony here - i'm willing to expose my friend's lack of vulnerability, but i'm not willing to expose myself with my own list of inadequacies and sins.

i think i'm just realizing how much i value vulnerability as an aspect of intimacy in a friendship. no matter where people fall on the spectrum, i do expect some level of vulnerability in friendship. i don't expect people to be that vulnerable publicly, and i advise against it in many ways, but in the way i share life with my friends, yes, i do value knowing a person's struggles and weaknesses along the way. as a Christian, i feel we owe it to one another. none of us is a lone ranger, we all have strengths and weaknesses that require help from others. this is the essence of being a member of the body of Christ.

yes, along with this vulnerability and openness comes higher risk. by knowing my weaknesses, sins, and areas of vulnerability, those i have trusted with this information can hurt me greatly. but i can also find freedom in not hiding my sins and weaknesses. when i expose them, they can be mended, healed, and others can help pick up the slack.

i realize that both willingness to expose my vulnerabilities as well as concealment of my vulnerabilities can be self-serving and sinful. there is wisdom in both, and a time for both. i don't deny that.

on the other hand, i want to learn to care for my friends's vulnerabilities better. i want to protect them, care for them, and certainly not abuse them. i respect my friends greatly who have chosen to open up to me and share intimate things with me. i am honored to have a position in their lives that allows me to know these things. i am delighted that they trust me, and i need to learn to do a better job of guarding that trust. there have been occasions that people have told me things in confidence and i didn't realize that it wasn't common knowledge, so i repeated it elsewhere.

for example, a group i am in for class had a lively conversation one day about relationships across cultures. one group member wasn't there, so the next time we got together, we recounted a few highlights of our conversation to the missing member. but one of the group members that was there the first time wasn't there the second time was offended that we had repeated a few of the things we had said. i don't think this person was particularly offended, and we certainly didn't recount any of the specifics of what they had said, but rather the overall tone of the conversation and personal dynamics of the conversation. it's things like that that i want to be more aware and careful of. we are all in the same group, and i think we would have had the exact same conversation if the last group member were there to begin with, but still, i just want to guard the privacy of my friends in better ways.

i want to be known as a trustworthy person, with integrity and conscientiousness. i want to guard the privacy of friends and be a "safe" person with home they can be honest, open, and vulnerable with, because i value this trait in a friendship highly.

that said, i hope i haven't been too open with this post. i hope i haven't exposed situations or identities that needed to be protected... hmmm, still working on that one, i suppose...