Quotes about Vulnerability

In the context of a compassionate embrace, our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

Relate to people as a conqueror and they will hide their real nature from you. Violence is the brother and distrust the sister of this way of life.

What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of our life are born often in our pain and in our vulnerability and in our losses.

When we dare to lift our cat and let our friends know what is in it, they will be encouraged to lift their cups and share with us their own anxiously hidden secrets. The greatest healing often takes place when we no longer feel isolated by our shame and guilt and discovered that others often feel what we feel and think what we think and have the fears, apprehensions, and preoccupations we have.

When our friend says, "If my friends found out how I really feel, if I would show my real self, then they would no longer love me but hate me" — he speaks about a real possibility. It is very risky to be honest, because someone just might not respond with love, but take us by our weak spot and turn it against ourselves. Our confession might destroy us.

The great challenge is living your wounds through instead of thinking them through. It is better to cry than to worry, better to feel your wounds deeply than to understand them, better to let them enter into your silence than to talk about them.

This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you can always begin afresh. Whenever you willingly choose this poverty you make yourself vulnerable, but you also become free to see the world and to let the world show itself in its true form. You have no need to defend yourself. You can proclaim loudly what you know through your intimate contact with God, who is the source of all life.

The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.

We have probably wondered in our many lonesome moments if there is one corner in this competitive, demanding world where it is safe to be relaxed, to expose ourselves to someone else, and to give unconditionally. It might be very small and hidden, but if this corner exists, it calls for a search through the complexities of our human relationships in order to find it.

Lifting our cup means sharing our life so we can celebrate it. When we truly believe we are called to lay down our lives for our friends, we must dare to take the risk to let others know what we are living.

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

For we all are dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending..