Revealing our vulnerabilities

When the children were young, if the sun was out, so were they, playing every moment of every day. I went through a lot of Band-Aids. They wore them like badges of honor, and it never bothered any of them to recount how they got their boo-boo when someone would ask, "Oh, what happened to your finger?" Or their knee, toes or anything else.

When Ben was nine, he fell off the top bunk bed and struck his forearm on the bed frame of the lower bunk. He told me his wrist hurt, but there wasn't a mark on it, he could move it, and I figured it would feel better by morning. It didn't, so off to the doctor we went. I was shocked when the doctor read the x-ray and informed me that the wrist was broken. I thought I was the worst mother ever, having made poor Ben wait through a pain-filled night before the break was set. He was thrilled. Casts, after all, draw quite an audience and everyone is anxious to grab a Sharpie and sign their names while hearing the story of the break recited again.

Band-Aids, casts, Ace-bandages, even stitches, always draw a sympathetic crowd. After all, most of us have endured these childhood boo-boos and we can all relate. The pain, the inconvenience, the temporary accommodations made necessary by a wound are familiar to all of us, and we always reassure the wounded that it will heal, saying, "This too shall pass," or Danny's mom's favorite, "It'll be better before you're married," whatever that means.

But what if the wound is permanent? What if the injury, illness or disease results in permanent damage, such as that caused by breast cancer, a severe head trauma or a bad car accident?

Those closest to the afflicted must find a way to deal with the new realities, but the casual acquaintance or the stranger in the grocery store, are oftentimes left with nothing helpful to say.

During my short stint at Jon's IGA in Worland, Wyo., a young mother came in with a darling babe in arms. Sweet little baby, but her lips and fingertips were a unique shade of blue. Fussing over her, as I do any baby I encounter, I teased her, saying, "Looks like you've gotten into the blueberries, little one."

Oops. Dawn with foot in mouth again. "No," the young mother informed me, "she has a heart condition and her circulation is affected. That's why her lips and fingertips are blue."

I apologized for my insensitivity, and had nothing left to say.

She had exposed my vulnerability.

If it could happen to this baby, it could happen to mine, at the time safe at home with his daddy, healthy and thriving.

We don't do vulnerability well.

We don't do hospitals well. We don't do surgeries well. We don't do illness well. We don't do bankruptcy well. We don't do divorce well. We don't do death well. They all, on one level or another, expose our vulnerabilities.

It brings to mind a quote Danny and I discovered exploring a country cemetery. "Behold my friends as you pass by

"As you are now, so once was I

"As I am now, soon you shall be..."

Our denial of our vulnerability is secure as long as we can successfully ignore the injured, the ill, those ravaged by disease -- or for as long as we can successfully answer away the why of certain things. Better yet, a popular inoculation against vulnerability is to find a way to make the afflicted guilty. If only they had done such and so or shunned this or that, this wouldn't have happened. We thereby make them co-conspirators to their own misfortune, providing safe passage for ourselves if we avoid similar decisions in our own lives.

The reality is that we are all vulnerable. There is no magic incantation, there is no magic formula of living that can guarantee that a similar fate can be avoided.

Jesus warns us of this reality when he made mention of the 18 workers killed when the tower in Siloam collapsed. "Were these men more sinful...?" (Luke 13:4, 5)

Perhaps it would be better, better by far, if we were to acknowledge all of our vulnerabilities, and the vulnerabilities of every man. Perhaps then compassion would replace censure and gentleness would supplant judgement. And in adopting this course of action, perhaps we would be following the proffered advice found in the closing line of the memorial verse, "...Give thyself to God and follow me."

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor dept, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38, 39 (NIV)