Vulnerability is our emotion for today. Are you vulnerable? What are you vulnerable to? Why are you vulnerable? What, exactly does being vulnerable mean?
Merriam Webster indicates vulnerable means, Capable of being wounded, being open to attack or damage.
In today's world anyone of either sex is vulnerable if they are with a person of the opposite sex, most especially if they are alone with that person, however briefly! I agree that is kind of skewed, but it happens! Doctors, both male and female, doing examinations on patients, will always have another person in the room with them during examinations for just that reason.
When you allow yourself to love truly, openly and without judgment or holding back you become vulnerable. When you become involved with someone innocently and those emotions subtly move into deeper feelings you become vulnerable. Sometimes those feelings become a caring respect. Sometimes you find yourself in love. Either emotion can cause you to be vulnerable or open to hurt if the person you care about doesn't reciprocate or if they should do something to cause you to lose the respect or love you have built within yourself toward them.
When you stand up for what you believe openly and proudly, you also become vulnerable. In the past stating your religious beliefs could cause you to become vulnerable. This was especially true in the workplace. Baptists, Catholics, Methodists and Presbyterians might not have been under the gun but it used to be that if you said you were a Spiritualist in the workplace—Whoa!—you may have suddenly found you had two heads!
Fortunately that is not as prevalent as it once was! We are so blessed to live today when Spiritualism is out of the closet! We are much less vulnerable than those who came before us in that respect. I personally rejoice that there were Jeanne Dixon, Ruth Montgomery, Edgar Cayce, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and all of the others who helped pave that path!
When I think about the Fox sisters and what they faced when this whole movement started back March 31, 1948, it is overwhelming. On the other hand the time was right! Spirit brought about those happenings at that time, in that way, to those children and they, being children, did not resist telling what they had experienced. Had an adult had those experiences they may have perceived they were losing their mind, keeping the incidences to themselves. At that juncture, Spiritualism would have not been brought out into the open the way it was when the Fox children received the information.
It is also possible that their souls knew prior to when they came into this life that they were tackling a major situation and chose to do the best they could with it. Unfortunately the world can put a lot of pressure and stress on people; the one sister became an alcoholic as a means of escaping from the limelight they had found themselves unwittingly thrust into. Are you familiar with the story of the Fox sisters? They lived in Hydesville, New York in a rented home. A previous tenant in that house had murdered a peddler and buried his body in the basement of the house. His unresting soul kept rapping, making noises and other disturbances until the children started rapping back and talking with him. They called him Mr. Splitfoot and answered his raps until they had worked out a code both they and the spirit understood until they found themselves communicating! The book Time is Kind: The story of the unfortunate Fox family by Mariam Buckner Pond can sometimes be found on Amazon.com and is well worth a read.
They were most certainly vulnerable. Being children when all of this came about, they didn't even have a choice about what they were taking on. By contrast, as adults, we have the choice of living life fully and taking on the vulnerability of closing ourselves off from the experiences where life may place us through the choices—good or bad—that we make.
Sometimes people who have experienced medical difficulties can become so embroiled in their own physical situations they can only talk and think about themselves and their problems. They can withdraw from those around them, pushing away those who care the most about them. The same is true of people who have experienced severe losses in their lives. Burdened with experiencing their grief they may also withdraw from life finding it no longer worth their efforts to go on.
We all hurt when we lose someone or something we care deeply about. Losing a pet, for instance, can cause much hurt when we have to have it euthanized—removed from the life experience. Put to death. Does that mean we should never again experience the love and joy a pet can bring into our lives? Should we lock ourselves away from loving another animal? Most of us choose to cry and attempt to move forward. You can never replace a person or an animal in your life. Each is individual as a personality. You can consciously choose to love again and experience the joy a new animal can bring.
It does not mean you may marry again, as in the case of a lost spouse—it means you will honor what the two of you shared by carrying on and helping who you can where you can until your time comes to rejoin with the one who has moved on into Spirit. Sometimes it can mean you will meet someone and choose to remarry in this life time. This is not wrong. Life is for the living!
Either way, we have choices. With the knowledge of the continuation of life after this earth plane we should be able to face our problems and deliberately choose to keep ourselves open and vulnerable. There is much we can do for others still walking this earth plane. The example we set for others might be the only beacon they receive when they face similar experiences.
Opening yourself to life prevents becoming bitter. Opening yourself to new experiences allows life to bring you to new knowledge, new people, new situations where you can grow forward. Vulnerability can go either way. In badly chosen situations, being vulnerable can bring severe problems into our lives that we would, should and could have chosen to avert. Vulnerability, in other situations can open us up to living life more fully and experiencing more of the joys life can offer.
Let us choose to be open to life and take our chances with vulnerability in good ways. Let us choose to live and love those around us by being as helpful and gracious as we are capable of being.
The real message Jesus taught was to love one another as we love ourselves. Loving opens us to vulnerability but in loving we are continuing to live and experience what life can offer. Loving is also a tribute to those who have gone ahead that we are honoring what they have shared with us by attempting to pass it on to others in whatever way we are able. Be vulnerable in good ways. Go forth and live! May God bless you all, always.