Fierce Vulnerability
Like many others, I have been watching events unfold in Minneapolis with my heart breaking and anger stirring in my body. As we commemorate Martin Luther King Day, I realize how familiar this is, and mourn the fact that we are so far from the dream that inspired his work – a dream that has been an inspiration to me for decades.
Over the past year I have struggled with how I can show up to this time and move us closer to that dream. I have wondered what I can do to move us towards greater kindness, grace and common humanity.
Some of the deepest insight and hope I have found with regards to these questions is expressed in Haga Kazu’s book Fierce Vulnerability. This book reflects upon the work that he and others have been doing – work they have come to call Fierce Vulnerability. In 2018 they launched the first Fierce Vulnerability workshop. Some of the words from that invitation are included below:
“How do we stop injustice in its tracks while acknowledging the interconnectedness of all people? How do we protect ourselves while nurturing a relationship with our broken heartedness? How can we build a movement that can shut down a highway while creating a culture of opening up? …
What we yearn for is a fundamental transformation of our hearts, our values, and our relationships – to ourselves, to each other, and to the earth.
Fierce vulnerability is an attempt to build such a movement. A movement that understands the assertiveness needed to address the crisis of our times. A movement that sees social change as a radical act of healing. A movement that knows each of us needs to heal as much as we may feel compelled to blame. A movement that knows violence hurts all parties. A movement that will never see any individual as disposable, undeserving of dignity, or incapable of transformation.
Fierce vulnerability is born of the conviction that our vulnerability is our greatest strength. Vulnerability makes us whole, and that wholeness is the only thing that can undo generations of investment in plunder and exploitation.”
This book opened me up. It brought me face to face with the pain of these times – and it created a new sense of possibility. I finished the book, and I wanted to read it again – WITH OTHERS. And I’m going to do that…
Beginning on February 5, I will be hosting a zoom book study on Fierce Vulnerability. We will meet weekly from 6:30 to 8:00 CT for as long as participants want to continue. I see this as an opportunity to immerse ourselves in this work, to support one another in these challenging times, and to consider potential actions we might take individually or collectively to make a difference. You can register for this book study on my website: https://www.openheartconsulting.net/classes/p/fierce-vulnerability-book-study
I hope you will choose to join us.
My favorite Martin Luther King quote is from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...
This is the inter-related structure of reality.”
We are inter-related… tied in a single garment of destiny. And we have creative power. Together we can make a difference.
Namaste.