Strengths … of a different kind?

“Perhaps I am stronger than I think”

Thomas Merton (1915-1968)

Over the past week or so I have had occasion to think quite a bit about strengths. Not so much my own but those of others. As I mentioned last week I have been involved in a number of “conversations” each of which, to a greater or lesser degree, the participants expected to be difficult. I would say that, without exception, those conversations have turned out to be both different and better than anticipated because of the way in which the participants played to their strengths.

The interesting thing, for me at least, is that in almost all instances what might have been taken to be “weakness” was, in fact, a strength. People opened themselves up and made themselves vulnerable. Not in a weak way, but by allowing and enabling others to see something of themselves.

If you have been reading regularly you will know I am currently reading David Malouf’s novel, Ransom. Like good coffee, great red wine and the very best ice-cream, this book is something to be savoured, not devoured in great chunks. I am up to the section of the story where King Priam is travelling in a cart, with a simple donkey driver in attendance, to meet Achilles and beg for the return of his son’s body. On the way he has become aware, for the first time it would seem, that it is possible to see beyond the forms and the rituals that had both defined and protected him in his role as king, into the life of another.

Malouf describes Priam reflecting in this way:

It was as if you had found yourself peering through the crack in a door (exciting, Priam found, this imagining himself in a situation he would never have dreamed of acting out) and saw clearly for a moment into the fellow’s life, his world …

What struck me over the last week or so is that there is great strength and courage in opening the crack in the door enough for others to see into your world.

It is only when we are prepared to do this that we are able to see and respond to the others and the otherness around us.  Surely it is  in this seeing and responding that the seeds of change are contained. How else could we choose a different course of action except by seeing the world, at least partly, through the eyes of another?

So when you are feeling vulnerable of anxious as you allow others a glimpse into your world perhaps what you are showing is not weakness, but strength.  Perhaps you too are stronger than you think!