The beauty of vulnerability

the beauty of all creation
Originally uploaded by job_earth
The speaker at tonight's meeting had a powerful message in a delicate package. The essence of what she spoke about was coming to terms with her arrogance after several years of being pissed off about having to acknowledge her alcoholism, her defects, her "not knowing", her humanness, her vulnerability. What brought this front and center for her was a recent incident involving a former drinking buddy who was still using, riding her bike under the influence, crossing traffic at a red light and hit head on, now lying in a coma. This event took the speaker to a place of deep humility, recognizing that this could have been her, particularly had she remained in her cockiness about being able to control her drinking or in her denial that perhaps she wasn't really an alcoholic.

I hung on her every word. I could relate to nearly every feeling she expressed. Arrogance and denial and appearing that I was in the know are the very things that kept me out of the rooms of AA for so long. Underneath the false armour of those defenses was a tremendous fear of having the achilles heel of my personhood be revealed -- that others would see that I am deeply sensitive, anxious, unsure, scared, and vulnerable. To have these things be seen would surely find me very alone in the world. Avoided, talked about and shunned. I believed this for quite a long time, I can say with certainty as I reflect back.

The moment we recognize that the masks we wear are transparent to the outer world is the moment we find ourselves willing to take them off and to let our real face be the one and only that we wish the world to see. I refer to this process for myself as "getting naked" -- I'm talkin' stripped down, bare bones, buck-naked to the core. As the speaker shared tonight, the process of dropping into humility finds her scared shitless. Me too. And yet, putting on any costume or mask after having already "dropped my drawers" so to speak, would be a farce.

A woman I love with all of my heart has shared with me that when I am in this place of utter nakedness and I reveal myself to her from this part of my being, she wants to come closer. She is attracted to me. Never in my wildest imagination could I have conjured up this scenario. In my irrational mind, this would have most definitely resulted in instant abandonment and repulsion. I am learning how distorted my former thinking really was.

In the rooms of AA, there is heart-stopping, breath-taking, eye-popping , vulnerable beauty everywhere. It's seen in the trembling faces of newcomers and heard in the stories of old-timers who share from their heart and their soul. It's the hush that falls upon the room when a member discloses the very thing many of us have feared the most. It's the insight someone discovers about themselves for the 1st time that many others have quietly known about them for a long time. It's in the quivering voice of the person who has waited until the end of the meeting to muster up the courage to speak. It's found in the tears that trickle down the cheeks of men and women alike. It's what makes goosebumps and hairs stand straight up after a compelling share. It's what keeps each of us coming back.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is found in my homegroup buddy who has cancer and who attended tonight's meeting. I greeted him as I usually do with a hug and a kiss on the forehead and a sincere "How are you doing?" as I look directly into his eyes. His shaking hand fumbled to lean on his forehead as he looked half-way up at me and said: "I'm scared to death. I found another tumor in the shower today. On my jaw." And yet, he doesn't want to drink. He would, however, like the chance to shoot or blow-up something and that gave us a good belly laugh together. You don't get much more beautiful or real than this.

I am grateful to witness and to experience what it is to be human. To not want to be anything else other than who I am and created to be. To be willing to unwrap and reveal and accept all the comes in the package that is me.