From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended.
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

I remember the first time I read Randall Jarrell’s poem, “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” I was struck with the fact that the ball turret which hung underneath a WWII B-17 was an awful reminder that people are material things, easily torn, not easily mended. The gunner, by necessity a short and small man, crouched in the fetal position inside a retractable, spherical glass and metal bubble equipped with two fifty caliber machine guns that pivoted 360 degrees, so that he might defend the vulnerable belly of the B-17. An incredibly small sphere, the ball turret made it impossible for gunners to wear full parachutes. As the gunners hung below the plane, they frequently had to endure temperatures that dropped to 50 below zero. In spite of their heated and insulated flight suit (which often came unplugged and left the gunner to make his own heat), many gunners suffered frost bite in their extremities and faces. The mortality rate for B-17 crews was a staggering 30%, but for ball turret gunners, an agonizing 60%. Ball turret gunners submitted themselves to a potentially deadly vulnerability, one from which both man and machine were all too easily torn. Still, we marveled at and even encouraged such vulnerability as heroic.

There are those who may regard vulnerability as a cross to bear, something to endure if they are to mature, overcome, and triumph. Like ball turret gunners, they may cautiously lower themselves into glass spheres from which they become wholly visible to those who are eager to attack the soft underbelly of their brokenness. They may even argue that vulnerability is a season (singular) to get through–a kind of rite of passage. Show the world who you really are. Embrace the initiation. Spend three days and nights in the wilderness with only a compass and canteen, and earn your life badge.

But is vulnerability really a just stage you pass through, just another life badge that you earn? Not so, according to author Madeline L’Engle who writes: When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable. If vulnerability is a season (singular), it is a very long one that spans a lifetime. Accepting vulnerability, as L’Engle suggests, is the business of children and adults alike. It is an element of the human condition. And it comes with a guarantee of an infinite number of life badges to be earned.

A season of vulnerability, however, is not only a public airing of one’s victimhood (e.g. the Olympic backstories of athletes who choose to compete in the midst of, or just after, personal loss or the candid confessions of reality talk show guests who have survived incredible pain.) This kind of vulnerability has unfortunately grown into no vulnerability at all. It’s become standard fare–expected and even sought after–as if this status alone might gain one entry into a preferred and protected class. No doubt, there are occasions during which this may be authentic vulnerability, but too often it takes a more plastic, cultivated form. And thus, it may be boutique vulnerability at best.

The real stuff is the stuff of life. Writer and research professor Brene Brown continues to champion the role of vulnerability in our lives. In her best-selling book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, she writes:

Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.

She is not the first, nor will she be the last, to embrace authentic vulnerability as the path to better life and love. Poet Theodore Roethke claims that Love is not love until love’s vulnerable. Christian writer and theologian C. S. Lewis writes that To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal . He continues by warning that you can lock love up, and it will not break. It will, however, become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. Researchers, poets, and theologians seem to agree that vulnerability is, indeed, the birthplace and best incubator for love.

In his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, English poet David Whyte writes:

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.

And if we were to truly inhabit our vulnerability, to walk fully through its door, what would that look like? Certainly, being transparent about personal loss can be cathartic and necessary. We live in a fallen world, and the consequences of this are apparent in its generous citizens of loss. The fact that these consequences don’t prevent the work of generous citizens of comfort is nothing short of a miracle.

But what about those who dance around the edges of vulnerability, who risk revealing other things? While it may be socially acceptable to comfort and accept our brothers and sisters who share their losses, it is not so kosher to comfort and accept others who struggle with anger, shame, guilt, doubt, pride, judgment and fear. We tend to tell these individuals–directly or indirectly–to keep these things to themselves or to share them only with licensed professionals. Rather than risk authenticity, we often counsel deceit. Undoubtedly, you could benefit from opening up about your anger or shame or fear, but this vulnerability will just alienate and/or condemn you. Better you just keep this to yourself. This is the uglier side of vulnerability: that for some, vulnerability should not be a legitimate choice.

American psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes:

There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.

There can be no community without vulnerability. This, I agree, can be the redeeming power of vulnerability. If we invite real vulnerability–warts and all–into our relationships, we have the potential to build real community, the kind which takes shape as we embrace our common, messy and occasionally ugly humanity. Clearly, there is much risk involved as we lower ourselves, like ball turret gunners, into glass spheres which will expose us as merely human, easily torn and often not easily mended. But, together, I think we might inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss. And this generosity might just save us.