I know my wife needs this and deserves this, but do you really need me to be vulnerable, to open up and be transparent?
Why do I hear these sentiments everywhere, especially in the Church? I hear pleas to be vulnerable, to open up and to be transparent more than I hear pleas to consider some theological perspective.
I'm wondering if all of this talk flows from our cultural narcissism. The mantra of the day is, "I am okay the way I am." I am loved the way I am. I am screwed up. And I need to talk to someone about how screwed up I am so that I will feel better about being screwed up. The wonder of it is that you will listen to me because you can relate to screwed up people.
Don't give us perfect lives. Don't talk to us about your six-day-a-week workouts. Don't eat baked chicken and broccoli in front of us. Don't read impressive novels in front of us. Don't be impressive in general, unless you do it from a distance! We want our friends to be below us, or at least to struggle as much as we do. And that is why we can't stand being around either tools or saints, but perhaps it is the saint that most disturbs us. How can anyone face the issues of life we do and be ahead of us in nearly every way?
We want to join each other in mediocrity rather than spurring one another on to perfection. I would much rather have you tell me that I'm acceptable the way I am than show me a life that is in every way superior to my own.
Tell us how you cheated on your spouse, how you can't keep your diet, how you erupted in anger at your children or can't keep your head about finances. Not only can we relate to that, but if the truth be told, we want to relate to that. We want others to be pathetic because deep down we hope to stay pathetic.
It is one thing to address our faults with trusted friends; it is quite another thing to only be friends with those who share and encourage our faults.
Perhaps in bygone ages, people were preoccupied with discussion as a means to self-improvement. Today we have abandoned self-improvement for discussion itself. We talk to each other ad nauseam about our bad habits with no intention of change. This is the day and age when rehab and rebound is fashionable. In point of fact, our vulnerability with each other, our shared experiences, validate our intention to stay exactly as we are. Nobody wants a saint for a friend! We can't relate to people driven towards moral, physical, emotional and intellectual perfection. We would rather laugh with vulnerable failures than suffer with humorless perfectionists.
