Facing our vulnerability – need for a true spirituality

WHAT is vulnerability? There is a Latin word in there, "vulnus," which means wound.

All of us people are vulnerable and wounded and we are in need of God’s help.

If I look at what happened in our subdivision during the last weeks: a teacher in our elementary school was killed by one of her students because the boy got angry when the teacher scolded him because he was always absent from his class. Another student got killed because some rocks fell down from a mountain while he was working down below in that area where he was living. These are tragic and unexpected incidents and these people and their families are in need of God’s help and mercy.

According to the Gospels, Jesus after his suffering and death stood up from the death and on the third day he was resurrected from the death by God his father. Before he died he was hanging on the cross and he had to face his vulnerability.

Such is the reality of our life here on earth. We are vulnerable. We have many questions in our life that have no direct answer: questions about the meaning of life, why is this happening and why are we here on earth.

We need a spirituality that is realistic, that does not avoid to answer these questions. We have to sit down and reflect deeper on all these questions. That is what the Carmelites call an "open space" in our midst.

There are questions today about sustainability, aggression and violence, confusion and disorientation. We have to face these questions. Our life is vulnerable, our peace is vulnerable, our orientation is vulnerable.

Since I got an infection at my leg which the doctor called cellulitis, I lost my memory and my orientation. My nerve-system is affected. I forget the names of my friends, I forget what happened yesterday. But the strange thing is that I still remember the names of my friends when I was still young. And so, many situations from the past, from my youth come automatically up in my mind. For me it is clear that the spirit of God is alive in me, that God is in control of everything and I can rely on Him during all the problems I encounter in my daily life.

How do you deal with all this? How do you stay alive? What is the right answer? Resistance, anger? Is the answer not more in the fact that you are vulnerable, in humility and accepting the reality? That may give us a revealing strength. It teaches us much about ourselves and about others, about how we are people, what lives in us people on hope and doubts, foolishness, anger, pleasure, uncertainty.

We can say that in everything there is a split through

“OK!” he said “I hope that I have enough.” I added some of my money to his without him seeing and we started to count it. There was enough for the doll and even some spare money. The little boy said: “Thank you God for giving me enough money!”

Then he looked at me and added “I asked yesterday before I slept for God to make sure I have enough money to buy this doll so that mommy can give it to my sister. He heard me!”

“I also wanted to have enough money to buy a white rose for my mommy, but I didn't dare to ask God for too much. But He gave me enough to buy the doll and a white rose.” “My mommy loves white r oses.”

A few minutes later, the old lady came again and I left with my basket. I finished my shopping in a totally different state from when I started. I couldn't get the little boy out of my mind. Then I remembered a local newspaper article 2 days ago, which mentioned of a drunk man in a truck, who hit a car, where there was one young lady and a little girl. The little girl died right away, and the mother was left in a critical state. The family had to decide whether to pull the plug on the lifeassisting machine, because the young lady would not be able to recover from the coma. Was this the family of the little boy?

Two days after this encounter with the little boy, I read in the newspaper that the young lady had passed away. I couldn't stop myself as I bought a bunch of white roses and I went to the funeral home where the body of the young woman was exposed for people to see and make last wishes before burial. She was there, in her coffin, holding a beautiful white rose in her hand with the photo of the little boy and the doll placed over her chest. I left the place, teary-eyed, feeling that my life had been changed forever. The love that this little boy had for his mother and his sister is still, to this day, hard to imagine. And in a fraction of a second, a drunk driver had taken all this away from him.

“The driver is safer when the roads are dry; The roads are safer when the driver is dry.”

“The problem with drinking and driving is... the MOURNING after.”