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mackenzian

Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

vulnerability

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A lesson in decision-making from the Quakers

Four people, two men, two women, sit around outside in a camp environment. Two face away from the camera and look right. The other two are smilling and listening intently..
Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo

The expectant waiting of unprogrammed Quakers was one of the things that drew me into the fellowship of Friends eight years ago, and I’m still learning about how local meetings practice it.

George Fox University professor Cherice Bock recently wrote a fascinating blog on the ways that Quakers worship and discern together. Bock is part of Oregon’s Northwest Yearly Meeting, which has been facing some heavy decisions about its membership and hosting no small amount of rancor.

It is so difficult, now, to even imagine trusting others, and in some ways I would like to just give up trusting people altogether. It would be much easier to just become cynical, and to attempt to use political means to manipulate my way in the future.

Much more difficult, however, is remaining vulnerable and open, trusting and hoping, and remaining open to the radical and intense freedom and joy of coming together as a group of Friends to discern together, fully and wholly, unreservedly, bringing our whole selves.

I say it is more difficult, but to me, it is also the only Way worth living… I will live out love. There is no other Way I would wish to go.” —Cherice Bock

The political environment is toxic right now. So is much of Christian culture, and people who work in either space have every good reason to throw up hands and take up a skeptical view of what’s possible among people.

So being part of a community that practices a contrary approach can provide a sanctuary. I still want to be part of groups, religious and non-religious, that treat vulnerability as a collective discipline, not a sign of weakness; that hold humility and learning as ideals to stretch toward and as processes that reform and re-form us as we live them.

What I love about Bock’s post is that it’s clearly influenced by the real life muck of community. She’s not choosing vulnerability in the absence of reasons to close her heart. She’s choosing it despite those reasons, despite those realities.

Sometimes that’s all I need to see: I don’t need guarantees about whether it all works. I just need to see field notes from other people, people I may never meet, people in entirely different contexts from my own: people still deciding to respond to hostility with wholeness and not give up.

Check out Bock’s article on her blog.

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Control and courage

On my way out of the office last Friday, I saw a single white wildflower growing out of a crack in the parking lot. It was nestled right in the corner between the level that the cars drive on and the sidewalk that people walk on.

It was about eight inches tall with Irish green leaves, and it was growing its heart out. I saw it, and it made me smile, and I said to myself, “I should take a picture of that.”

Then I got in the car, and forgot.

That little wildflower was alive. It wasn’t even in the ideal location for life of its type, but it had found itself a place in the world to spread a few roots, and it’s going to grow in that crack for as long as the sky will water it.

Beautiful pluck struggles to break through the cement in hyper-controlled environments. Environments where every metric is logged and every output organized can become environments where a little white wildflower will get cut down through the weekly Wednesday Weeding program.

Control and wildflowers don’t work well together: organizational efficiency doesn’t always support the unfolding of organisms. Yet without organisms, organizations ultimately collapse.

Control tells us that if we can just grip life and people more tightly, we can wring more out of them.

But instead it turns out that the more we move through the world with full, trusting hearts—that is, the more we choose courage—and the more we open up to our environments rather than becoming less and less sensitive to them, the more room we gain to experience life itself, those we share this life with, and the joy and beauty of growing our hearts out together.

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The truth is enough.

"Mean what you say. And don't embellish or go beyond it. The truth is enough." —@mackenzian | Matthew 5:33-37

Matthew 5:33-37, part of the gospels’ summary of Jesus’s teachings, challenges the way we handle the truth.

And it’s a necessary challenge. Truth, embellishments, hedges, and avoidances all make business and interpersonal relationships that much more complicated. We’ve learned to distrust marketers and their advertising claims, and “Just give it to me straight” is a thrown gauntlet: Should I really tell them what I think? How will things change when I do?

Insecurity unsettles us, and so we embellish our speech. We lie. I’ve texted, “On my way” before I’ve been on my way because I expected disappointment for leaving later than expected. I’ve talked in circles about my beliefs on politics and religion because I don’t trust the motives of the people asking. I’ve lived and worked and loved as if my Yes and No are insufficient.

In this space between two people comes the Wise One, teaching: “Say ‘Yes’ when you mean yes, and ‘No’ when you mean no, and ‘I don’t know’ when you really don’t know. Anything beyond that is an attempt to exert power and control.”

There’s no need for fancy mess. The truth is enough.

It can also be terrifying, if vulnerability is involved. The truth might be “I don’t think this role fits for me anymore and I need to step down.” Or “Yes, I do want us to work together on money. I’m tired of trying to figure it out on my own.” Or “I know you don’t understand who I am. I’m sorry you’re missing out on my life, and I wish things were different. But they aren’t.”

The truth being true doesn’t imply anything about what others might do or say in response. But it does let you shed unnecessary weight: all the footnotes and explainers and explain-away-ers that you need to prop up embellishments and dodges. It does allow you to choose the simplest words, the ones you don’t have to memorize in advance because they are true.

The good news? The good news is that we can begin again. Wherever we are—at home or at work or on the streets—whenever we notice insecurity rising, whenever our tongues curl around an extra word or story, we can swallow gently and choose a different way. Because a world we build on any other ground than the truth is not worth living in.

Take a moment: self-check. Where has insecurity guided you lately? What beliefs have you been building your relationships on? Are those beliefs worth switching out for more honesty more often?