The Curious Case of Being Human

The Way Of Fragility

• Ridley Hall • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Join us for this conversation about what makes us human and how embracing our limitations might be the key to deeper connection, more authentic faith, and communities of genuine grace. Subscribe now and share your own reflections on vulnerability in your life.

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www.ridley.cam.ac.uk

Romanian Border Refugee Story

Speaker 1

It was minus 10 degrees on the 11th of March 2022 in eastern Romania. We stood in the snow waiting for our potential lodgers to arrive from across the Danube River on a ferry that had seen more people in the last 12 days than it had probably seen in the last year. It was strange Children clutching teddies, mothers, aunts and grandparents dragging suitcases, the occasional cat in a carry crate. They didn't look like refugees. They would have blended in perfectly at London Liverpool Street, and yet it was a little odd. It was definitely quiet. I can't quite explain how there were so many people and so little sound. We were standing at the Ukrainian border nearly two weeks after the Russian invasion, waiting to do what little we could Offer transport, shelter, some financial help, a hot drink, a friendly face and to hear their stories in the hope that we may raise some support back home for them. Just very normal people, really Normal people, thrust into the depths of vulnerability, Vulnerability.

Speaker 2

Humanity is not an easy thing to live with. We often struggle with our limitations and the realities of a physical world we can't ever fully control, A human world of interactions that brings as much pain as it does joy. And yet this is the existence that God chose and embraced. He brought salvation not by removing us from our humanity, but by entering it and inviting us into a journey of transformation within it.

Understanding Modern Vulnerability

Speaker 1

In this six-part limited series produced by Ridley Hall Cambridge, isabel Hamley and I are going to be discussing some of the unique situations, opportunities and challenges us humans are facing and try to gain unique insight and wisdom that the Bible and the Christian life can offer us. This episode Fragile and Vulnerable. Vulnerable Is vulnerability only valuable when you choose it.

Speaker 2

Well, I would hope not. Vulnerability is interesting, isn't it? Because on the one hand, our culture quite likes the idea of being vulnerable, you know, kind of baring your soul on social media, telling the story of how difficult life has been or how much you struggle, and on the one hand, that kind of shared vulnerability enables others to be able to say, yes, I'm vulnerable too, but on the other hand, it's very controlled vulnerability, it's what you choose to share, it's not imposed on you, and actually often the real vulnerability is about those things which you don't control. So I think there's something interesting about the way in which vulnerability appears kind of in the media, because actually it often appears as part of an attempt to overcome vulnerability by taking control of our story.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I can. It is weird. Vulnerability is another. I don't want to say weaponized, but it's definitely. It's got a lot of stuff, a lot of weight and a lot of baggage attached to it.

The Bible's View on Human Fragility

Speaker 1

And there's a virtuousness that's been attached to vulnerability that maybe, maybe, is slightly ignorant in the depths of vulnerability in places like war zones and in homes where there's domestic abuse. And I said this thing once to my youth group back when I was a youth worker, and I don't know how I feel about it now. Um, this is about 10 years ago. There was some. There was something along the lines of if, if you want to have great faith, you need to put yourself in positions where you need great faith, don't, don't wait for wait for something to happen or expect that you're going to have great faith in the kind of mundanity of an everyday life.

Speaker 1

In a sense, I was basically saying if you want faith, you better make yourself vulnerable. I don't know, what do you think about that? I'm not sure why I think about that.

Speaker 2

Anyway, I don't really know. I think there's a difference between taking risk and taking risk involves vulnerability, doesn't it? That's something we choose, but there's still an element of faith in that, isn't there? In saying, actually I am going to take risk, I am going to make myself vulnerable, that doesn't mean you have to glorify that. I don't believe in people playing the martyr. But actually taking a risk because you think God is calling you to take a risk and because it's the right thing to do might involve vulnerability. But that's going to be a different kind of vulnerability. I think you're going to process it intellectually very differently from the kind of vulnerability that is completely out of control, not wanted, and you haven't conceptualised as something that can possibly good in any possible universe.

Speaker 1

So do you from your perspective, I guess the Bible advocates two things around vulnerability. One is this sense of address the vulnerable in your communities who need help the sick, the hungry, but also this other narrative, which is make yourself vulnerable to God and make yourself vulnerable to one another.

Speaker 2

Yeah, there is that. And there's also the sense that everybody is vulnerable to a degree, and often it's when we fail to recognize our vulnerability that things go wrong. So all of us have got vulnerabilities. It's not? You know, vulnerability in scripture is part of being human. You can have more vulnerability or less vulnerability, but to a degree you'll always have some. I mean, and that's where, in kind of common, kind of 21st century language, I would say it's important to be aware of intersectionality. You know that for some people there are multiple overlapping vulnerabilities and it's really really important to recognize those. But it's also really important not to imagine that you can be human and not have any vulnerabilities, because that is part of the human condition.

Speaker 2

And so I've done a lot of work on the Book of Judges, and the Book of Judges is full of leaders with vulnerabilities and the vulnerabilities are different. But you know, you read the story of Jephthah who ends up sacrificing his daughter Terrible, terrible, horror story. But you're told right at the beginning that he was a great warrior and the son of the prostitute and that he was basically rejected by his family, run out of the town and started living in the wilderness. So you have this guy who becomes a leader. But he's got this incredible psychological vulnerability within him and I think that then undermines his ability to be a leader.

Speaker 2

And that's not the only story. We have Gideon, whose I think his vulnerability was he was very tempted by power and status and making himself a kind of king, expressly against what God had said. You know, not to do Samson again a leader, just completely vulnerable, because whatever he sees, he wants. So that seeing thing comes up again in the story of Samson, again and again and again. Samson sees, samson wants, you know, just like a toddler man-child. But all these kind of all these big figures in the history of Israel and David is another one. You know the vulnerabilities of David are many and they lead him into trouble because he doesn't recognize him, he doesn't have the self-awareness to see where he might be vulnerable and therefore need the help of others.

Speaker 1

Is there a general, I mean, is there an overlying kind of humans are most vulnerable because, or is there something that maybe sits right in the middle of that?

Speaker 2

I think we are vulnerable both because of ourselves. We have inner vulnerabilities, you know, and that's to do with temptation, with sin, with whatever, and we are vulnerable because of what we do to one another, and I think those two things are there and they're not quite the same thing, but they do overlap at times. But I think sin is what makes us vulnerable to a degree, but not just that. So there's the vulnerability that's due to the fact that we mistreat one another, that we're violent, conflict-driven, and all of that. There's vulnerability as well. That is simply because we're small and, you know, a baby is vulnerable.

Community, Safety and Vulnerability

Speaker 2

They just are, and that's not a moral failing and that's not because of a moral failing in another person. It's just because they're very, very dependent. And as human beings, we're quite small in the face of the forces of nature, in the face of, you know, volcanoes, tornadoes, great winds, floods, kind of tsunamis, earthquakes. We just are small and vulnerable and that's part of because we're human, we're not superhuman, and I think that's one of the we're human, we're not superhuman, and I think that's one of the things we find hard as well to accept, um, and in today's world, often we want to make our vulnerability somebody else's fault, I think, is often.

Speaker 2

You know, if I'm hurt, it's because somebody's done something, and sometimes that's true, but often there's a combination of circumstances and randomness and the fact that we're just quite fragile.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it's just always going to come for us. We're always subjected to the I mean, in a way, we're subject to the ocean, we're subject to the thunder, the lightning, to our very world, and we are but dust in some senses exactly, you know.

Speaker 2

Again and again the psalmist says he remembers that you are but dust. You know that sense, that you know we, we are fragile, we're small why?

Speaker 1

why do you think we were made that way?

Speaker 2

I mean there's an interesting question as to if things hadn't gone wrong in the world, would we be as fragile? I mean, the baby would still be fragile, but would that become a problem?

Speaker 1

So there's a question of whether fragility yeah, if the world was right, it wouldn't appear that we were vulnerable and fragile.

Speaker 2

Vulnerable in the same way, or fragility would no longer be problematic. Or if we were right, it wouldn't appear that we were vulnerable and fragile, vulnerable in the same way, or fragility would no longer be problematic. Or if we were, right.

Speaker 1

The world could be however it wanted to be, we wouldn't be vulnerable to it.

Speaker 2

So there is that. On the one hand, I think there is something in vulnerability that draws us to think about our responsibility and our attention to the other person. So our fragility and our vulnerability in theory should enhance our awareness of one another, our awareness of how we relate to one another, how my actions might affect you, particularly if you have additional vulnerabilities. So there is something about our vulnerability that should encourage us to think responsibly and ethically.

Speaker 1

I heard this thing once, which is the difference in is one of the biggest displays in humans about how you process vulnerability is that if, for someone that you don't know, you nod downwards I mean, this is a bit street, maybe not quite your thing, so if you're walking along in Bethlehem Green, you nod downwards at the stranger, but if you see someone you know you nod upwards, you expose your neck. Basically Is vulnerability crucial for relationship.

Speaker 2

Something interesting, isn't it that I I sometimes hear people saying we should relate to everybody in exactly the same way and treat every people the same and you just go. Well, that's not possible. I mean partly because we're all unique so we can't relate in the same way to everybody, but also, as humans, we don't like thinking that, but we are animals with instincts and because we're vulnerable, we also have instinctive reactions to protect ourselves. And often these instinctive reactions can be like you say, you look down, you protect your throat, you're instinctively slightly more wary of strangers, you feel more comfortable and free to be vulnerable within your community, and that's not necessarily bad. I think the question is, how do you process, you know, how do you process that and what do you do with your awareness of vulnerability so you can't turn it into a weapon against all strangers.

Speaker 2

But equally, I think, if we want, you know, we're talking a lot about strangers, foreigners, migrants in the world today and it's very easy to be very dogmatic. So it's easy for one side to just say we don't want any foreigners because we just need to protect our jobs, our home or whatever, and on the other hand, to say we should be completely open because it's good, diversity is good, and what I think is missing from both sides is a recognition of our humanity. And our humanity is that, because we're small and fragile and vulnerable, we seek to feel safe. And so if you want to encourage people to open themselves up to a stranger, you have to say, okay, what is it that's preventing that openness, what is it that's preventing a community from feeling safe, and what is it you know in the relationship that a stranger can do as well?

Speaker 2

To kind of invite a more trusting response to the other. I mean, I thought of that a lot around the time of Brexit. So I was the vicar of a church and there's huge amounts of my congregation voted for Brexit and I'm like I'm your vicar and I'm French and you voted for Brexit. I find Brexit really really, really tough for me yeah, I bet.

Speaker 2

But I was like I need to try and understand where people are coming from, because, of course, the people I tend to associate with were saying it's xenophobia, it's, you know, and there was some of that, don't get me wrong. There was some old-fashioned sinful attitude and there was some of that, don't get me wrong, there was some old-fashioned sinful attitude. But there was also all kinds of things about how do you build community in the global world. How do you build community when a lot of ways in which community used to be organized, around your local high street, around you know little shops that were independently run, that people went to when you lived in smaller communities?

Speaker 2

You know, for some of my very frail older people, it was really difficult going out and actually hearing lots of languages that weren't their language. So they don't understand what's being said and they're very aware that, as an older person struggling to walk, they feel vulnerable. Now, of course, that shouldn't come out as aggression against a stranger, but actually we do have to understand what is that human reaction? What is it about? And actually, what have we lost in the modern world?

Redeeming Our Brokenness

Speaker 1

And actually, what have we lost in the modern world? You know that actually makes people feel so vulnerable. So is there an argument I don't know as Christians, to safeguard that vulnerability? Is that something that we've been called upon to act upon, in a way, and help them, not to remove their vulnerability because of, maybe, some of the necessities of us remaining open to the world around us, but to help people feel safe enough that they can have vulnerability to an appropriate level?

Speaker 2

I mean that comes back to some of the questions we've talked about when we talked about touch, for instance. How do you find the right way to relate, a way to relate that's both you know well wise as serpents and innocent as dogs, that kind of considers. For good human relationships, you need a degree of vulnerability, you know. You need to be able to share some of who you really are, because without sharing some of who you really are, you don't have a real relationship. But actually, the minute you do that, you're vulnerable. So how do we learn to hold those revelations gently and generously, at the same time as being aware of the human tendency to sin and to be unkind and hurtful, or sometimes even to get things wrong? You know, not by design, but by mistake, by misunderstanding. And I think there's something about creating communities of grace. I think grace is one of the things that enables vulnerability to be safer.

Speaker 2

Um, in some kinds of vulnerabilities, but certainly when you build community, unless you have grace, people just resent anybody who hurts them, who gets things wrong, who you know.

Speaker 2

And grace I think grace is indispensable because without it you'd constantly be telling people oh, you didn't react well to you know, I shared with you that you know X, y or Z happened to me, that I have this illness and you did not respond in a way that made me feel good, that I have this illness and you did not respond in a way that made me feel good.

Speaker 2

So building good communities where we can be safe is partly about being able to say well, actually, I find that a little bit hurtful. Maybe we could have done it, but as well as being forgiving and not shriving people off and not picking up on everything and I think that takes practice, particularly in today's world, which doesn't really do grace, I think in today we either go oh, it doesn't matter. Well, that's not true, because if it didn't matter, you wouldn't need to forgive or to be gracious or we just cancel somebody. And how do we find a space to see the whole person in front of us and to make it possible for them to be as fragile and vulnerable as I am?

Speaker 1

Yeah, there's this image of, or the Japanese art form called kintsugi. Yeah, it's made around most of kind of the cultural spheres, but for anyone that doesn't know, it's the art of repairing broken pottery with golden glue so that you make a feature of the cracks and the brokenness, and I think largely that's been a really positive image for me about how we manage vulnerability and the brokenness that comes with the fact that we that are that are kind of our average selves, where every time we've been trespassed upon and and being broken and our vulnerability is being taken advantage of is there, I don't know. Again, I think it goes back to some of these questions of like in the beginning. As we said, there is an innate beauty in the fact that we are broken, or is that just us trying to make the best of a bad lot?

Speaker 2

I think there's an innate beauty in being vulnerable. I'm not sure there's an innate beauty in being broken, but I think brokenness can be redeemed and it's the redemption that's beautiful rather than the brokenness itself, if you know what I mean. So I don't think it is good to be broken, but I think sometimes it is necessary and I think that when it is either good or necessary, it is still possible for that brokenness to be redeemed and be changed, and it doesn't remove the scars but it can transform them.

Speaker 1

Because it does feel like, if we lean into the mental health chatter a little bit more, there's this wave of glorifying, in a sense, as are they, they just need to go through a burnout and then, and then everyone will be better again, or they just need to go through the the valley and then, rather than it being this narrative of we all go through valleys, we all go through these times, and how can we grow through it, become more resilient, as opposed to this narrative of you need to do it in order to be better.

Chosen Vulnerability and Risk

Speaker 2

It is really hard, isn't it? Because, I mean, I went through, I had a really difficult childhood and I went through quite a long time of feeling really jealous of people who had it all. In my eyes, it's not helpful to say we all go through the same thing because actually, objectively, some people have a much harder life than others. You know, if you live in Gaza now, in Ukraine, in South Sudan, in Yemen, if you're a woman in Afghanistan, your life is objectively harder. It just is, and some people have harder things than others. But that doesn't mean everybody else has it easy and everybody has their own stuff to deal with. And it's very easy to look on the outside of a person and judge what it is. But for me, kind of going through, kind of feeling jealous, I had to.

Speaker 2

Just I think the temptation is to try and turn your suffering into your super thing that makes you better than others.

Speaker 2

You know, rather than saying we all have our journey and we all have a journey with God and all of us have to be transformed one way or another. And the way in which God has acted in my life is this what I have gone through has scarred me, it has shaped me, not always for good. God has redeemed parts of it. There is still some healing to do, and that's my journey. And then stop there, because I think the temptation is to then compare it to another person and then make a hierarchy, and I think that's where it becomes really, really damaging to either be jealous or be resentful of other people's journey or try to set yourself up as a better person, because, of course, if you have gone through something, it might give you some empathy but, I mean, my experience of going through a lot of trauma is that, yes, it has given me empathy and understanding in some areas, but it's also taken other stuff away yeah, you know.

Speaker 1

It's really interesting because in the last episode we spoke about, you know, the aiming to be the self-made person and how independence is the top of of where human success lies. It feels like one of the alternatives where vulnerability has been taken advantage of is that if you're not going to do that, then you are going to be the most hurt person.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you know it's like I am going to be the most vulnerable person, as this moment where it's like I have nothing else apart from my vulnerability, and it seems to me that we do have a really corrupt understanding of how to wield that, because I do think there is, like we said, we've pointed to the positives.

Speaker 2

I think we, as human creatures, we're very bad at finding the right balance between different things, aren't we? I think it is important to talk about the things that we have learned through vulnerability. It is important to be able to talk about the things that have hurt us, though I'm not convinced that broadcasting it on social media to the entire world is particularly helpful. But actually, we are also sinful, and being hurt doesn't mean you're not sinful, and I think we can turn our hurt into something that hurts others. And that's one of the places where we are vulnerable to misuse of all kinds of things. And, in a sense, having gone through trauma, does it make me inherently better or worse? It just gives me a responsibility. What do I do with this? You know, how do I move on, how do I live well with who I am and how do I learn with God, and what responsibility do I have, you know, as a person, and what responsibility do I have towards other people who are struggling with other things?

Speaker 1

you don't have towards other people who are struggling with other things. The balm, so to speak, I guess for this is you alluded to grace earlier and also grace forgiveness, but do you think there is also a calling to? What do you think about the whole kind of man up idea? I know that that's gender specific, which immediately grows against some, some people, but as a sentiment you know is, is there a biblical narrative which supports the idea of get up and just get going again?

Speaker 1

keep calm, yeah, keep going um because you know how are we throwing all of it and do we throw it all at the bed of?

Speaker 2

you know, forgive, stay staying up and be gentle it's interesting, isn't it, that, um, we struggle so much with that balance. We want to kind of do all of one thing or all of another. And in Scripture, I love the Psalms of Lament. They're a bit depressing if you read them all you know, one after the other after the other. But the Psalms of Lament have got this balance of oh, life is terrible, life is terrible, this happened, that happened, that happened, and woe is me, and you know. And all of it is terrible genuinely. And then they go. But you got to have promised.

Speaker 2

And so they kind of juxtapose a real ownership of the bad stuff together with a sense that that's not the way the world has to be and that it is possible for the world to be different, and then a sense of often engaging with the difference. So, you know, there's a sense in which, once you pray, god, can you change it. Often that brings you into this fear of well, how are you going to be able to change that? And maybe that's the place where we're not very good at the moment, that we tend to stay in the kind of complaining bit, but we don't do the hope and transformation bit, or we just want to look at what's possible to change and to transform, and we want to change the world without taking the time to just sit in the difficulty um I want to read you this story um 1 Kings 19, chapter 19, verse 19.

Speaker 1

This story really changed my life, actually, and I'll explain why. In a sec, elijah went straight out and found Elisha, son of Shepard, in a field where there were 12 pairs of yoked oxen at work plowing. Elisha was in charge of the 12 pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak over him. Elisha deserted the oxen, ran after Elijah and said please let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, then I'll follow you. Go ahead, said Elijah, but mind you, don't forget what I've just done to you. So Elisha left. He took his yoke of oxen and butchered them. He made a fire with the plow and tackle and then boiled the meat A true farewell meal for the family. Then he left and followed Elijah, becoming his right hand man. Aside from the fact that boiled meat sounds like an absolute disaster I mean, I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat any meat, but boiled meat sounds worse than just all other meat.

Finding Balance in a Global World

Speaker 1

This story changed my life in a sense, because I read it as, in order to find out what's next, I don't I need to burn down everything that was before, so I don't have an option to come back, so I just want to touch on this chosen vulnerability theme again. In a sense, when I was where I had at the time I had a job, um, it was probably the only only kind of normal job I've had where it felt a bit more nine to five Technically. That is, I guess, why I'm here, but I don't know how much I obey them rules, and I was really miserable but I couldn't find a way forward. But and maybe this is missing the point of the story altogether but I said, okay, well, I think what I need to do is not give myself the option to go back or to stay here.

Speaker 1

In a sense, I need to be like Elisha and say, well, this is going to take every ounce of courage that I have and the last thing I need is to kind of be able to just stay where I am. And the last thing I need is to kind of be able to just stay where I am. In a sense, for me, that's been the thrust of what it means to be willfully vulnerable, in a sense, by saying, okay, I'm not going to give myself an alternative, I'm going to put myself in a position where I have to make quick choices, I have to be deliberate and I have to show courage. Have you got any examples? Do you think where you've done that and do you see that as a strategic approach?

Speaker 2

I think, when I look back, there are times when I've taken risks because I felt it was the right thing to do, or I felt God was inviting me to take those risks, and there have been times where I've made a decision to protect myself because it felt like I couldn't go forward without, and I think both things are important and both things have a place at different points in our lives. I wonder whether one of the things that really matter is not to imagine that we're invulnerable. So in your examples of chosen vulnerability, it's going forward, not trying to control everything and make everything go well, or see yourself as a super person, or think the only way I can go forward is to be invulnerable as a super person, or think the only way I can go forward is to be invulnerable, but actually choosing to go forward knowing that you're not invulnerable. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2

So it's choosing to be vulnerable, but it's almost as much choosing not to try and control everything, and choosing not to try to be invulnerable and not thinking that I can only do this if I'm ready, or I can only do this if I've got all my ducks in a row and it's all absolutely clear. So I think kind of being able to just kind of do that. I mean, I've done some of that in my time, like when I went to be the chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and I barely had any idea who the Archbishop of Canterbury was really at the time, you know, and it felt like, okay, we're going to move as a family and we have no idea what we're going into, and I really had no idea and that felt like a risky decision to make. Yeah, but I've made different types of decisions at different points in my life.

Speaker 1

And I think one size fits all doesn't quite work. I just want to finish returning back to the very starting story of this episode, returning to the theme of these great, great senses of fragility. How does that become?

Speaker 2

part of our conversation without going crazy. So without going crazy, that's hard, isn't it? Because I think as human beings we're made to be small and local. But then we get up and while we have breakfast, you can read about all the terrible things that are happening everywhere in the world, and it's just so easy to feel crushed, and for me, part of it is keep cultivating a tender heart and a thin skin. I know lots of people say you have to grow a thick skin, and I just think no, we don't. What we have to grow is the ability to keep compact, to keep being compassionate without letting ourselves feel overwhelmed not necessarily really hard, and some of that is about recognizing what I can and what I can't do.

Local Action in a Global Context

Speaker 2

What are my responsibilities as a human being? Like, my responsibility is not to save the world. The world already has a saviour. The job is taken. I don't have to do that. I can't save every child who's dying of hunger, but I can be responsible about what kind of food I choose to buy, how much people get paid for their labour. You know, in the products, food I choose to buy, how much people get paid for their labor. You know, in the products that I choose to buy. I can be responsible for choosing to give money towards world relief in one country. I can do it for everywhere, but there are things that I can do. And being really realistic about our size as a human person, yeah, and saying we are not powerless, neither are we all powerful.

Speaker 2

We're in that in-between kind of space and what's happening elsewhere in the world is partly something that concerns me, because we are all human together, but neither is it something that's all about me.

Speaker 1

It's really challenging because, I mean, this isn't an episode about the environment, um, but one of the the things that I guess we by transcending space so well. By that I mean having the ability to fly places and see images instantaneously from all parts of the world. It opens us up not only to an environmental problem of kind of mass transportation, um, that living locally wouldn't we just wouldn't have to deal with the same repercussions, but I guess it's created a powerlessness feeling that reigns over us all the time by being a global citizen, we're aware but not globally powerful enough.

Speaker 1

It's almost like we are designed to be local in our ability to actually have remit to confront fragility.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I find it helpful to think of the incarnation in that respect, that Jesus was completely and utterly local, particular kind of limited and still God and the human.

Speaker 2

Jesus still had something to say about the Roman Empire, which was like the known world at the time, you know, and how people behaved within it. But actually he was intensely focused on responding to what was around him and the things that he had power over. And I think maybe that's a good model of humanity that we are. You know, we are intensely local, all of humanity that we are intensely local. But partly because we're made in the image of God, we're also connected to something bigger than ourselves. So there is something between the immanent and the transcendent within us and we need to learn to live well with it. And I think we're at risk when the global prevents us from seeing the homeless person begging at our door. But we're also at risk when we're so involved into our own stuff, our own community, our own thing and my thing, that we then become incapable of seeing the vulnerability and the need kind of further away from us.