By Rev. Kirk Ballin
March 5, 2023
Readings
- “Sustained shortfalls in emotional intelligence are, sadly, no minor matter. There are few catastrophes, in our own lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance…Soberingly, despite all our advances in technology and material resources, we are not much more advanced in the art of delivering emotionally healthy childhoods than generations before us. The number of breakdowns, inauthentic lives, and broken souls shows no marked signs of decline We are failing to offer one another tolerable childhoods not because we are sinful or indifferent, but because we still have so far to go before we know how to master that improbably complicated subject: Love. – from The School of Life: An Emotional Education, Alain de Botton, author, philosopher, psychologist (co-founder).
- “Cherish your doubts… Doubt is to the wise as a staff to the blind… For doubt is the attendant of truth.” From Cherish Your Doubts #650, Robert T. Weston. UUA, Singing the Living Tradition
- “…train wholeheartedly… to be warriors of nonaggression who hear the cries of the world…If we find ourselves in doubt that we are up to being warriors-in-training, we can contemplate this question: Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” – from Comfortable with Uncertainty, Pema Chodron.
- “If we understand the direction of evolution—toward balance, or evenness—we will also realize that this is the purpose of everything that happens: to lead us toward balance. Because there is a clear direction to evolution, and reality is not yet there, nature keeps pushing toward increasing balance. As a result, the only thing that is guaranteed in reality is that yesterday is not as today, and today will not be as tomorrow. Change is the only certainty. – Michael Laitman. founder and president of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute THE TIMES OF ISRAEL
Sermon
If you were here the last time I was with you, you might recall that I spoke about my bifurcated mind and the experience I had back in 1971, when, while high on pot, I had an existential crisis that engulfed me; that I had this split-mind-experience of trying to be present in an everyday, normal conversation while simultaneously feeling like I was nothing; that I was psychologically naked; that I was in an extreme state of vulnerability. I mentioned that that moment of deep chaos, fear, and uncertainty could have driven me to a complete emotional breakdown, even suicide. It was by inhabiting that realm of stark vulnerability, being at risk as I stood before that open psychic window peering into the inherent reality of Creation, that standing face to face with Chaos, which would either break me down or ignite profound change.
So, it did the latter. It dramatically, and at first, traumatically, redirected my understanding of my being human; it made me profoundly aware of the need to redefine my relationship with being alive; a redefinition that greatly determined the trajectory of my life and, eventually, my decision to become a Unitarian Universalist Minister. The symbiotic relationship of Vulnerability feeding on itself could have destroyed me or recreated me. I chose the latter.
From the nano-second when any life form, from the tiniest single cell to insects to us humans, is created, that lifeform is in a constant state of vulnerability for the rest of its existence. For not a nano-second is that lifeform not in a state of vulnerability, of not being on the edge of being absorbed back into the chaos of Creation i.e. whatever Death is.
So, vulnerability is at the core of being alive while also inviting us to die. It is no less so for the simplest life form; it is no less so for us humans. Vulnerability is the necessary condition for creation of life and for the discontinuation of life.
Wow! What a concept, what a general notion of existence to try to wrap our human minds around! The paradox that Vulnerability is a Compulsory condition for being alive while being the Always Present Threat to our very existence!
Consequently, all lifeforms are in a continuous flux between these 2 faces of vulnerability; staying alive is the dance all lifeforms are doing with vulnerability. Seeking a homeostasis, a balance within vulnerability is the dynamic of this dance. Staying alive is the impetus for seeking this homeostasis for seeking balance. Consequently, change is the constant dynamic for seeking this balance, for staying alive.
But it appears that we lifeforms, we humans, are engaged in some unique dance steps with vulnerability, unique efforts to seek homeostasis in our dance with vulnerability. Those dance steps are certainly choreographed by our efforts to stay physically alive. But those steps are made further complex by the fact that we humans have a highly developed capacity to experience — emotions. Our staying alive, dancing with, and being in a constant dynamic with vulnerability is extremely and profoundly defined by the fact that we humans have a highly developed and influential emotional capacity which defines who we are as lifeforms. As far as we know no other lifeforms are as defined by their emotional experiences as we humans are. So, our being alive, our surviving has a huge emotional component to it.
The other reality of our being human is that we humans have developed this capacity to be self-aware, unlike any other lifeform on this planet. Our “selfs” have come to mind. (And with this understanding I refer you to Antonio Damasio’s Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. Damasio very methodically explores the emergence of the human self-aware mind). We are acutely aware of being alive and of the ultimate prospect of dying. We are acutely aware, conscious of this dance with vulnerability in seeking to stay alive.
So, humans, through continuing cultural evolution, have devised remarkable achievements in fostering our physical bodies to stay alive and to prosper, despite our inevitable surrender to death. Awareness of our vulnerability has spurred on our efforts to find ways to survive longer and more comfortably, particularly in technological advances. Such an exercise in human intelligence has been remarkable!
Yet our human history has not equally served and advanced humanity in fostering an inherent intelligence that requires development in every human being. Externally, we humans can potentially benefit from the advances of technological developments to serve our staying alive, to stay in this dance with vulnerability. But internally, in the realm of our personal minds, our personal psychologies, and the collective psychologies of our communities, the deficit of healthy emotional intelligence, the lack of priority of emotional education in us as individuals and thereby our communities are, as the School of Life reading underscores, “no minor matter”. As the reading continues, “There are few catastrophes, in our lives or in those of nations, that do not ultimately have their origins in emotional ignorance”. The homeostasis we seek to achieve within our vulnerability is critically at risk because of our lack of healthy emotional intelligence education. Our dance with vulnerability risks not having any music to dance to at all because of our deficit of emotional intelligence as reflected in the increasing threats of nuclear war and ecological breakdown due to Climate Change. Our wakeup call as humans is to embrace our vulnerability as a unique lifeform to supercharge our creativity in our emotional selves, to nourish our emotional intelligence, and thereby foster healthier human relations.
Dr. Brenee Brown, did a TED Talk 12 years ago, which has been one of the most watched videos on the Internet, called The Power of Vulnerability, followed by her book, four years later, Dare to Lead. If you haven’t already or if you are again so motivated — check them out!
A researcher and Doctorate in Social work, Dr. Brown studies human connections, particularly our human abilities to empathize, belong, and love. What Dr. Brown says, among other poignant zingers, is that because we live in an inescapable world of vulnerability, we try to numb vulnerability; we try to deny our vulnerability. We deny death. Yet, Vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, trust, and love, as it is also being the source of our anxieties, fear, sense of being unworthy of human connection. These have their place in alerting us to threats, but they cannot bring us love and belonging. But if we try to numb our vulnerability because we want to deny our fears, anxieties, our sense of unworthiness, we also choose to deny joy, creativity, love, trust, and belonging.
Key to acknowledging and owning our vulnerability is Courage; Courage, which, paradoxically, requires to be born out of our being vulnerable.
It is easy to capitulate to the inevitable outcome of our vulnerability: and that outcome is death. So, the key to staying alive is an inherent outcome of having the Courage to own our vulnerability. Each one of us, all life forms, really, have an inherent courage, a will to live that’s required of us to engage our vulnerability to foster joy, creativity, belonging and love, evolution, i.e. healthier human relations, and, thereby, a healthier Biosphere, instead of only conceding to our fears and anxieties, fostering an unhealthy sense of unworthiness. Brown tells an anecdote of being on a military base and asked the soldiers, what is courage?. After complete silence, she was struck by one soldier’s affirmation in response that underscored that vulnerability was essential to courage. Without vulnerability, there can be no courage.
Brenee Brown, also reminds us that when we try to numb the reality of existing in Vulnerability, we lose our faith in life and the mystery that surrounds it. We go from faith and mystery to certainty; certainty is the great numbing agent. Certainty stifles creativity, trust, curiosity, imagination, joy, love and belonging. Certainty is a ubiquitous symptom one can witness in our own social world. Certainty is the source of the numbing of the reality of Vulnerability. Certainty attempts to short circuit Change, a ultimately, a futile effort. Certainty that refuses to acknowledge the dual nature of vulnerability seeks death. Certainty impedes evolution; certainty impedes healthy change; certainty impedes creativity; certainty impedes the ability to love and to belong.
As UUs, we often stand vulnerable to the certainties and the pressures of the dominant culture, the certainties of the oppressive beliefs, policies and systems that critique and/or dismiss us. As UUs we have encouraged the words of Robert Weston when he says “Cherish Your Doubts, Doubt is to the Wise as a staff is to the Blind, for Doubt is the Attendant of Truth.
As UUs we at least try in Principle, more specifically our 7 Principles (and the 8th and the proposed revision to Article 2; I’ll speak about those next time I am here) to question certainties and authorities, to pass them through fires of doubt and reason and love; we strive to embrace our vulnerabilities and recognize our evolution of Principles and Values to serve humanity and thereby the Biosphere we inhabit.
Pem Chodron: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, i.e. the uncertainty of vulnerability, or do I choose to live and die in fear?
How can we contribute to reducing the deficit in emotional education in the human world, the deficit that weakens our ability to use our ability to affirm life, instead of undermining life? For all the technological advances being proposed to save the Biosphere and humanity with it, all of them are meaningless without healthy, global advances in Emotional Education. Our vulnerability will ultimately be the source of our failure and not of our salvation, without the courage to prioritize emotional maturity. If we, the members of the human species, choose to be warriors who hear the cries of the world, still have enough time on this planet we must make emotional maturity be the heart of our human education. Vulnerability will either nurture humanity or dissolve it. And as the reading from the School of Life underscores, this has everything to do with mastering that improbably complicated subject: Love. And I will speak more directly to that when I come back on March 19 and talk about the 8th Principle and the Proposed Revision of Article 2 of the UUA, of which most UU Congregations, including this one, are part and party to.