Inside story: Kate McNally’s Thought for the week
‘In becoming vulnerable we also become real.’
We are admonished to love our neighbours as ourselves. I have always understood this to mean that we should wish for them the same things we have, or wish to have: love, community, health, adventure, challenging work, abundance, and so on. This is hard, as we don’t see our neighbours as we see ourselves. We see our ‘insides’ – our thoughts, wishes, fears, insufficiencies and inadequacies – but only their ‘outsides’ – their accomplishments, the face they turn to the world.
nd vice versa. They don’t know our vulnerabilities, our failures, our insecurities. They only see the face that we show the world, the face we don to protect ourselves. I wonder how we would react to the ‘us’ that others see? As Robert Burns writes, ‘Oh, the gift that God would give us, to see ourselves as others see us.’ Or to love ourselves as others love us. Because sometimes we find another person who seems able to penetrate our defences, to see through the walls we use to protect ourselves. Someone who can see beyond the face that we turn to the world and see right into our wounded hearts. What a rare grace that is, a communion that can feel God-given.
In Margery Williams’ classic tale The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed toy becomes a real rabbit both metaphorically and literally. It happens because he was truly loved. It’s the metaphoric transformation, though, that is usually quoted when referring to this work: ‘He didn’t mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter.’ I believe that this is the love that we all seek.
Another way to understand ‘Love our neighbour as ourselves’ is to understand it to mean that we should love our neighbour as our true selves. As who we really are, not as someone or something else. Not as who we want to be, or as who we want others to think we are, or as who they want us to be, or as they see us. But who we really are: imperfect, gifted and flawed, trying our best, trying to do better, trying the patience of others.
In order to do this, we must open ourselves to others. We must show them the insides that we normally protect. We must become vulnerable. In becoming vulnerable we also become real. In becoming vulnerable, we invite others into the place where we truly live. We open ourselves to having the love we offer returned, giving the possibility of a communion of souls that (as we see above) is rare.
What do we need to do to love our neighbour as our true selves? We need to sit in the fear and vulnerability that come when we let our walls down – not easy. How can we create a community where we can all do this? What in our actions signals to others that it is safe (or unsafe) to let down their walls? How can we create the sacred space that lets us love our neighbour as our true selves, a space where we can be who we really are, warts and all, and still feel loved? A space where we can become our God-loved selves?
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