October 28, 2024 • 37 mins
This podcast delves into the crucial distinction between vulnerability and accountability in our lives, particularly within Christian communities. The discussion emphasizes that while accountability often involves external pressures and questions, true growth stems from personal vulnerability—an act of willingly exposing oneself to potential emotional wounds. Dr. Mitschargues that vulnerability fosters trust and intimacy, which are essential for genuine connection and healing, especially in the context of sorrow and loss. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, the episode explores how societal tendencies toward control can hinder our ability to be vulnerable, ultimately limiting our emotional and spiritual growth. Listeners are encouraged to consider whom they trust with their vulnerabilities and to recognize the profound impact of being seen and known by others.
Takeaways:
- The importance of vulnerability over accountability in building genuine community connections.
- Vulnerability requires trust and a willingness to be seen and known by others.
- Accountability often deflects personal responsibility, while vulnerability fosters personal growth and honesty.
- Sorrow is an inevitable part of life, and vulnerability helps us navigate those challenges.
- Choosing safe and trustworthy individuals to be vulnerable with is crucial for personal growth.
- Understanding the difference between shame and guilt is key to personal accountability in faith.
Links referenced in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:43):
Gosh, the last time I did it,I said welcome to September.
So here we are at the end ofOctober, staring down at four days.
Days from now we are atHalloween and moving into November.
If you've been in any of thestores around here, you will have
already noticed Thanksgivingand of course, Christmas trappings
(01:04):
of all of that.
And here we go.
You know, here comes thecommercialism of our time around
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So I don't really know why Idid that.
It was just something to say,I suppose.
But welcome.
I'm glad that you're joiningme for this particular podcast.
Just to give you someperspective about it all.
(01:27):
Why do this?
I decided to jump on and havea podcast that isn't quite as programmatic
as the Outpost was.
Outpost is very much devotedto being the voice of Stained Glass
International or sgi, andtrying to add information and thought
(01:50):
into how do we build Outpostsfor the soul or Outposts for the
heart and communities for the soul.
And that really is what theOutpost is meant to be.
If you're listening to thisand then also listening to Outpost
as well, I will give you asneak preview of what's coming because
(02:13):
I'm going to be interviewingsomebody who actually wrote an article
a couple of years ago aboutthe six things that Christians Should
Know about Gen Z.
And I am looking forward tothat interview with Sarah Zylstra
and her article, I think, isvery telling and very important to
(02:33):
consider.
And I would be curious toinvite the people that are listening
that are from that generation,to affirm or disc confirm the information
that we talk about there.
I think it will be very.
Thought.
Provoking more than anything else.
So back to unscripted.
(02:56):
This is not really directed atan attempt to do anything productive
other than to talk aboutsorrow and how much it is very much
a part of our lives.
And what I said the last timeis the subtext of our lives in so
(03:16):
many ways.
And I'm not talking aboutpeople that are dying in our lives
as much.
As the losses we experienceand how we go about doing that.
And that's a little bit of what.
I want to talk about tonight.
And the effort in thisparticular podcast is not to really
(03:37):
have a series of topics tolook at, but things that I have caught
sight of and.
Caught wind of, if you will,when we're talking about handling
sorrow, handling life at all, really.
And that's what this one is inparticular about.
(03:59):
Because what I want to talk about.
Is vulnerability and accountability.
And in Christian circles itseems like it is a ultimate Value
to have some measure of accountability.
And while that sounds reallygood in my mind, it is nothing more
than a buzzword.
(04:20):
Now let me explain why.
Partly because of.
And well, let me give you somecontext first, why is this such an
issue and why you know, it.
Why is it that?
Why is it such an issue?
And the issue to me is how dowe own ourselves?
(04:45):
How do we.
What do we do with ourselvesand our own hearts?
What do we do with that?
And is it something thatsomeone else is responsible for or
is it something I'm actuallyresponsible for?
And so let me explain andunpack this a little bit.
(05:05):
And on my effort here is totalk about what I think is a key
issue when it comes to livingconsistent with the contours of our
own hearts and making thechanges that I hear people say all
the time about the changesthey want to make.
(05:30):
And oftentimes I will hear,well, I just.
I just need somebody to be accountable.
And I hear this a lot,actually, from a lot of guys.
And they have anaccountability group or they have
a.
They.
They have somebody holdingthem accountable.
And.
And I don't know that itserves any purpose other than to
(05:53):
put off the person they'retalking to that they have the accountability
and therefore they will change.
And so let me dive into this alittle further because in my mind,
and I have grown up, I am oldenough that it was the ultimate value
(06:15):
in most men's groups to have accountability.
And accountability, by itsvery nature is.
Requires some level ofpersonal honesty and honesty with
someone else.
And those two are very different.
In my mind.
(06:36):
Personal honesty is how honestam I with myself and then how honest
am I with someone else?
And accountability alwaysrequires, at some level, someone
else, someone else asking thequestions, someone else quote, unquote,
holding us responsible orholding us accountable.
(06:59):
And the problem is that themotivation is always directed towards
someone else, which I think isthe tool that is used to actually
believe that that's wherechange comes from.
From.
And so I won't change unless Ihave some measure of accountability.
(07:22):
And I don't buy it.
I really don't buy it.
And part of it is because I'velived that and accountability works
only if I am willing to be honest.
Now I will have probablypeople thinking, well, yeah, but
I think we underestimate howdishonest we actually are with ourselves.
(07:51):
And at some level, if we arehonest, usually what accompanies
it is shame, not guilt,because guilt actually motivates
me to change.
But shame says, I have blownit again.
I have done whatever it is Ishouldn't be doing or whatever my.
My standards say I shouldn'tbe doing.
(08:14):
And therefore, I am a badperson or a bad Christian or a bad
fill in the blank.
And so accountability ends upturning to other people to accomplish
what I have to do myself.
And as long as they're willingto ask the questions, then I can
(08:36):
answer them.
And if the questions are theright ones, then I will answer those.
If they're not the right ones,I'm not going to make the change.
I'm not going to correct themand say, well, you really should
be asking this instead.
And so accountability is aninteresting thing to me.
(08:58):
It's interesting in the sensethat in a lot of Christian circles,
they get really defensiveabout needing accountability because
we believe that we needsomeone else.
Now, on the surface, thatsounds right in terms of community,
I do.
I need someone else to walkalongside of me and understand that.
(09:21):
But accountability tends tocarry with it.
Maybe this is just me, and I'm just.
I'm just too much of arenegade on this stuff, but accountability
carries with it a hammer.
And if somebody asked me theright questions, and let me give
(09:43):
you context for that, becausein the days gone by, in the heyday
of what was the ministry thatactually brought me here to Colorado
and that was Promise Keepers,is that in a lot of men's ministries,
they would hand out cards withaccountability questions on them.
(10:03):
And usually the list ofquestions would be about your eyes
and how you're handling youreyes, and lust and relationships
with other people andrelationships with people that you
probably shouldn't be havingrelationships with, those kinds of
(10:24):
things.
And usually the very lastquestion was, are you being dishonest
with any of the answers youjust gave me?
And it's wild.
It just is downright wild forme to think in those terms, because
if somebody is going to coverfor their inappropriate behavior
(10:47):
toward the opposite sex or inother relationships or being controlling
or whatever that might be, arethey really going to say, yeah, I've
been dishonest that whole time.
I've been lying the whole time?
They're not going to say that.
I mean, let's be real, really.
And so accountability ends upplacing the responsibility for my
(11:12):
own responsibility for myselfon someone else.
And I've been in too manyinteractions with adolescents and
adults that if I don't ask theright question, they will not offer
the information that is neededfor the level of transparency or
(11:35):
authenticity that is neededfor the kind of changes that they're
seeking to make.
And in a Lot of cases I end upoften asking, so what exactly do
you want?
If I ask these rightquestions, you'll answer it.
If I don't ask them, you won'tanswer it.
So therefore you are justifiedin continuing on.
(12:01):
Because I didn't ask the right questions.
Right.
And so accountability worksbecause I have someone else to ask
the questions rather than me.
And if I'm not going to behonest with myself, and in a lot
(12:21):
of cases we're not, so how canI be honest with you?
I mean, if I'm not going towalk the contours of my own heart,
then how in the world are yougoing to walk with me in it?
I can't give away what I don'town, what I don't understand, what
I don't explore.
There's no way I can give it away.
(12:41):
And what I do give away, ifthat is based on a shallow assessment
of what is going on in myheart, then you may believe that
I'm being honest, when in factI am being honest to the degree that
I am willing to look in anykind of way at what's going on there,
but not with the Holy Spiritguiding me to be brutally honest,
(13:05):
which is usually the way thatwe describe this, to be brutally
honest about what's there.
So what does that mean?
What that means is I'm notshading the truth.
I'm not creating soft edges tomake it sound better than it is.
Or one person I read oncesaid, I'm not gilding the lily here,
(13:27):
making it look prettier thanit is.
I'm just calling it for whatit is.
But that requires the otherissue that I wanted to talk about
in this, and that is vulnerability.
And that is the thing that ifwe are going to build the kind of
(13:47):
community we say we want, itdoesn't require accountability.
It requires vulnerability.
And both of them,interestingly enough, have ability
in the root of the wordaccountability or vulnerability.
(14:10):
Vulnerability.
So what does that mean?
Because accountability isoftentimes it's used as an accounting
term.
I open my books, of my life tosomeone else, and now I'm being accountable.
They can look through therecords of my life.
But do we do that?
And like I said before, itultimately requires someone else
(14:34):
to do that because I'm notwilling to do it.
By implication, I'm notwilling to do it.
And so what about vulnerability?
And why is that such an issue?
And I would say that the issueof vulnerability and the issue of
accountability all revolvearound control.
(14:57):
It is the scourge of our time.
And it is the definingcharacteristic in my mind of our
culture today.
It is about control.
It is not about trust or ofvulnerability, which is what is required,
(15:17):
because you can't havevulnerability without trust, and
you can't have trust withoutvulnerability, which is a very famous
quote from Brene Brown.
So what is it?
I mean, let's define our termshere, right?
Because vulnerability meansthat I'm capable of being physically
(15:39):
or emotionally wounded, and Iactually voluntarily place myself
in a position for that toactually happen.
And that's really what it means.
It comes from the Latin wordvulneros, which is wounded in being
wounded, if you will.
And so vulnerability requiresmy willingness to be wounded, not
(16:04):
to be seen, but to be wounded,because I am willing to be seen in
that way.
And that's why control is sucha huge issue with vulnerability.
I have had.
I have just gotten started ina couple of my classes, the groups
that are part of my classes,interestingly, I could say that I
(16:31):
have all the and classes atCCU because I have shame and grace.
I have grief and loss.
I have crisis and trauma.
And those three classes are atriumvirate that is always talking
about vulnerability.
Now, part of the subtitle ofthis podcast is about life living
(16:56):
and sorrow.
And sorrow has a way of makingit so I can't avoid being vulnerable
because I have had somethinghappen that I can't finish the blank.
I can't control.
And so it happens and I haveto adapt to it.
(17:19):
I have to do something with it.
And so ultimately the questionis, why would I want to do something
like that?
And secondly, is it evenhelpful for me to do that?
And the bigger issue isaccountability requires someone else.
(17:42):
Vulnerability requires my choice.
And it starts with myvulnerability or my willingness to
be emotionally or evenspiritually wounded by God himself.
If I don't trust, I am notgoing to be vulnerable.
And that's exactly why werarely do it.
(18:06):
The coin of the realm, if youwill, is all about control.
Accountability gives me somemeasure of control in terms of what
I share and what I don't.
Vulnerability does not.
Most people will equatevulnerability with weakness or an
(18:29):
incapacity to protect oneself.
And while there is some truthto that, it is true that if I am
capable of being wounded, thenI am allowing myself to be open to
the possibility that that will happen.
(18:51):
Doesn't guarantee it.
It really doesn't guarantee it.
And with vulnerability, if Iam going to choose it, ultimately
that is the basis on whichcommunity, closeness and intimacy
is built and so sorrow entersour lives.
It is something we can't doanything about.
(19:13):
And we have a choice to makewhether or not we are going to allow
people to see us as we arerather than create an image of who
we are so that we can lookbetter than we are.
But vulnerability is the basisof intimacy, and intimacy is the
(19:35):
basis of growth.
And so the question that Iasked is, is it actually helpful
to me?
I would say yes, it is.
Actually.
Vulnerability is moreimportant than accountability because
I have to choose to be seen.
And when I choose to be seen,I have to be very, very, very careful.
(19:58):
You get the picture.
Very, very careful of thepeople I choose to be seen by.
Because not everyone istrustworthy enough to handle seeing
what I will be showing them.
And so I need to develop anability to discern the nature of
(20:21):
the people I become vulnerable with.
I don't do that with anyonebecause not everyone has.
Is trustworthy enough for meto do it.
Which takes us into a longerconversation, which I'm not going
to try to tackle tonight, butit takes us into a longer conversation
about do I try, do I bevulnerable with somebody that I want
(20:45):
to try to make trustworthy, ordo I evaluate and discern whether
somebody is trustworthy andthen be vulnerable?
Which the latter is the truerone to follow.
But see, we never have reallydeveloped the capacity to evaluate
(21:11):
other people because we havebeen drilled with this almost religious
level of belief that I cannever evaluate anyone because if
I do, then I'm judging them.
And that on the surface, thatis not true.
(21:36):
But because it's people wedon't want to be evaluated.
So therefore, we won'tevaluate anyone else.
And by doing so, we setourselves up to be wounded.
Not intentionally.
Not intentionally, but we setourselves to be wounded because we
(21:56):
never evaluate the people thatwe take the risk of being vulnerable
with.
And that has to be part of theconversation when we're talking about
vulnerability, because ifwe're going to take the risk and
we have evaluated and seen thenature of the people that we are
choosing to be vulnerablewith, then we are choosing to go
(22:20):
into growth, we are choosingto go into trust, and ultimately
we are choosing to go into theland of being known, which we long
for and we flee from.
We long for and we flee from.
So one of the things that wehave to understand is that vulnerability
(22:44):
requires me to have acommitment to me.
And most people will say, whenyou hear that, that statement that
I just made, there's too manymes in it for most Christians.
And the first thing that comesto their mind is, is I'm being selfish.
Now answer me this.
(23:05):
When you get up in themorning, tomorrow morning, and you
get up and take a shower andbrush your teeth and get ready to
go off to wherever you'regoing off to, are you overwhelmed
with a sense of guilt becauseyou took a shower and brushed your
teeth and had breakfast?
No, we don't.
(23:27):
And because we see thephysical world as being perfectly
appropriate to engage incaring for myself, my body, myself,
everything else.
When it comes to the world ofthe heart, we suddenly say, well,
now I'm being selfish.
When in fact there is thisthing that we can talk about in terms
(23:51):
of self care, which takes usinto another issue.
Because if I am going toengage in caring for my own heart
and the contours of it and thepeople that I invite to be part of
it, then my question thenbecomes, am I of enough value to
(24:13):
protect that heart and to becareful about who I invite into it?
Because if I don't do that,then I am going to be extremely haphazard
and reckless in who I inviteto be a part of my life and who in
a lot of cases, because of ourlack of evaluation of it, ends up
(24:37):
hurting me.
Because I haven't taken thetime to watch and understand and
even be a little educatedabout who's safe and who isn't.
And so my view of my own valueis key for choosing vulnerability.
(24:58):
And when I do that, then I'vegot to have somebody who understands
the gravity of taking the riskof being vulnerable with them.
And generally when you do,those people that are worth the risk
and understand the gravitywill say, wow, I am humbled by your
(25:22):
trust of me to share thatinformation rather than trying to
gain more and more informationbecause that gives them some kind
of meets some kind of need in them.
People that need ourvulnerability are people that are
(25:44):
patently unsafe.
People who understand thegravity of our vulnerability and
go into it with humility and asense of entering in on sacred ground
are people that are profoundlyimportant and safe enough to do that.
(26:05):
So when I engage invulnerability, I need a safe and
ready listener who is in thisfor me, not for them.
And ultimately it requires meto engage in the kind of personal
honesty to choose not becausepeople are asking me the right question,
(26:26):
but because I want to grow, Iwant to be seen, I want to be known.
It scares the spit right outof me.
I nobody is going to debatethat point.
It is scary to be vulnerable.
It is.
But there's a Cost for growth.
(26:47):
And that is one of them.
And that is why it is soimportant to engage in vulnerability
rather than accountability.
In.
In some respects,vulnerability is accountability.
And it is important in termsof even the healing process of our
(27:08):
sorrow, of the things that wehave lost.
We have to choose who we aregoing to be vulnerable with.
And oftentimes the people thatunderstand the gravity of it are
also people who haveexperienced the kind of loss that
we have gone through.
And that's key.
(27:28):
Let me give you an example,and I've used this example before,
particularly in the world ofgrief and loss and sorrow, is Job
the biblical character, thebiblical person whose story is told.
Most writers and mosttheologians believe that Job is probably
one of the oldest books of theBible, and Job is his assets.
(27:55):
And everything are wiped out,including his family.
And his friends come to visit him.
And on the surface, hisfriends look like the kind of people
that are worth trusting andbeing vulnerable with.
And how do I say.
Why do I say that?
Because when they first sawhim, they are stunned into silence.
(28:19):
And they sit for seven dayswith him in silence, which is a remarkable
act of self sacrifice.
It is at the end of that sevendays that they blew it, because they
opened their mouths to decideto communicate to him what they believe
(28:39):
he needed to hear.
Which is really moving fromvulnerability, sitting with somebody
in their grief and sorrow, totrying to fix the problem of their
grief and sorrow, which iskind of what accountability is really
all about.
It's about fixing, not about growth.
Vulnerability is about growthand less about fixing and understanding
(29:02):
that the journey of life withother people is built on vulnerability
and trust.
And I think you probably gotthat by now.
So it's important becausethere are a lot of people out in
the audience that might belistening that will say, well, okay,
how do I engage in this?
(29:23):
And if that's what you'relooking for, then certainty is what
also you're looking for.
And accountability will giveyou the certainty you want.
But certainty doesn't require trust.
Vulnerability does.
And that's the thing that wemove toward.
(29:45):
And the bigger issue that wehave to contend with is trust.
Because trust creates a gapbetween what I know and what I hope
for.
And I have to live in that gapthere with someone else perhaps,
and allowing them to fill thator walk that gap with me.
(30:07):
We as humans hate a lack of closure.
And at least in the world ofgrief, there is a lot of debate about
do we really need closure?
Is that something we really do need?
Or is it just a matter of howDo I embrace the losses that leave
(30:30):
a gap in our lives and wedon't have to fill it.
As a matter of fact, it'salready filled.
Because when somebody dies orwe have a loss, what is left behind,
the hole that's left behind iswhere love exists and where trust
exists.
And so accountability orvulnerability is the question of
(30:55):
the day and of the podcast.
And what do you want to dowith it?
Because accountabilityrequires somebody else.
Vulnerability requires trustand a willingness to be seen and
known.
And that's horrifying, evenfrightening, because we lose some
measure of control, but bydoing so, we gain some measure of
(31:20):
connection, which we alldesperately desire.
And that's what this really isall about.
And how do we go about doingthat, really?
And it's not about how, it'sabout what do I share with whom is
the question.
And that's what we have to gotoward and how we have to move toward
(31:43):
people that way.
Because I can tell you fromthe groups that I've done, even this
semester, and that's true forthe 40 years of counseling I have
done and all the groups andthousands of hours I have spent with
people in groups, that isalways the same thing, that there
is a moment of sacredconnection that happens when people
(32:07):
are willing to trust enough toallow themselves to be seen, because
it's on us to be seen.
It's not on somebody to teardown the stained glass and find out
who's behind it.
It's on us to dismantle thatthing so that we can be seen.
And when we do, we gain notonly a connection with somebody to
(32:32):
walk the journey with us, butwe also gain a little bit of ourselves
back.
And we learn to grow in owningour own hearts.
And that's really where all ofthis leads, is owning our own hearts
enough not only to give it toGod, but to give it to other people
(32:54):
as well.
And it's not throughcondemnation that we're going to
gain it in shame, certainlynot through shame, but through acceptance
and trusting that God loves usenough to that he loves us as we
are, not as we should be.
(33:15):
Because we are never, evergoing to be what we should be.
Because it's an illusion.
And we keep striving for anillusion that cannot be achieved.
We all know that illusions are not.
But yet we keep strivingbecause it's a nice distraction from
the longing we have to be seenand known.
(33:38):
Well, that's it for tonight.
Thank you enough.
That's all my rant aboutvulnerability and accountability
and how that fits into it all.
This is more of a life andliving part of the podcast than the
sorrow specifically.
We'll get back to it.
I can tell you just in my ownjourney through sorrow, the last
(34:00):
episode was on Surprises, andI have had so many people say that
and affirm how often there isan ambush of emotions that we just
can't see coming.
And that's also the case evenin my own journey through sorrow
and the loss of the friendthat I had back in March is that
(34:21):
we seem to get distracted by life.
And it's a welcome distractionuntil some quiet time arises and
there's some time to reflect,reflect on where life is and how
it goes.
And then it's like, ouch, thathurts again.
And the worst question to sayis, am I not any further than this?
(34:44):
When in fact it's anindication of how much further I
am.
And that is very much thejourney through the seasons of our
grief that we experience.
So that's it for tonight.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Be sure to check out thewebsite@sgi-net.org there's lots
of resources there.
(35:05):
There's a particular one inthe works to be unveiled probably
around Christmas time,realistically that you might be interested
in.
It fits in with all the thingsthat I tend to take on in this podcast,
but as well also in theOutpost for the Heart podcasts.
(35:29):
And there is, like I said,coming up next week is a podcast
on the Outpost where I get tointerview somebody that I think you
all might find interesting.
What we're going to do rightnow, because my schedule is so toward
not only with teaching butother things, we are going to go
(35:49):
every other week.
So next week will be the Outpost.
The following week will beunscripted and we will alternate
those and they'll complementone another because I may have some
commentary to provide onwhatever it is I talked about in
the Outpost.
So they will intermingle in alot of ways and that will be part
(36:11):
of this podcast as well.
So if you want to support andincur and be a part of the Ministry
of sgi, you certainly can dothat on the donate button on the
website.
If there's something I've saidor you have some curiosity about,
be sure to use the contactform on the website or just to email
(36:35):
me or DM me on Instagram@sgisginternational on Instagram
and Stained GlassInternational on Facebook.
You can find us find me thereas well if you have any reactions
(36:55):
to some of the stuff I'mtalking about tonight.
Thanks so much for joining me.
I hope to check back in in acouple of weeks.
And until then, love you later.
Bye.
Gosh, the last time I did it,I said welcome to September.
So here we are at the end ofOctober, staring down at four days.
Days from now we are atHalloween and moving into November.
If you've been in any of thestores around here, you will have
already noticed Thanksgivingand of course, Christmas trappings
(01:04):
of all of that.
And here we go.
You know, here comes thecommercialism of our time around
Thanksgiving and Christmas.
So I don't really know why Idid that.
It was just something to say,I suppose.
But welcome.
I'm glad that you're joiningme for this particular podcast.
Just to give you someperspective about it all.
(01:27):
Why do this?
I decided to jump on and havea podcast that isn't quite as programmatic
as the Outpost was.
Outpost is very much devotedto being the voice of Stained Glass
International or sgi, andtrying to add information and thought
(01:50):
into how do we build Outpostsfor the soul or Outposts for the
heart and communities for the soul.
And that really is what theOutpost is meant to be.
If you're listening to thisand then also listening to Outpost
as well, I will give you asneak preview of what's coming because
(02:13):
I'm going to be interviewingsomebody who actually wrote an article
a couple of years ago aboutthe six things that Christians Should
Know about Gen Z.
And I am looking forward tothat interview with Sarah Zylstra
and her article, I think, isvery telling and very important to
(02:33):
consider.
And I would be curious toinvite the people that are listening
that are from that generation,to affirm or disc confirm the information
that we talk about there.
I think it will be very.
Thought.
Provoking more than anything else.
So back to unscripted.
(02:56):
This is not really directed atan attempt to do anything productive
other than to talk aboutsorrow and how much it is very much
a part of our lives.
And what I said the last timeis the subtext of our lives in so
(03:16):
many ways.
And I'm not talking aboutpeople that are dying in our lives
as much.
As the losses we experienceand how we go about doing that.
And that's a little bit of what.
I want to talk about tonight.
And the effort in thisparticular podcast is not to really
(03:37):
have a series of topics tolook at, but things that I have caught
sight of and.
Caught wind of, if you will,when we're talking about handling
sorrow, handling life at all, really.
And that's what this one is inparticular about.
(03:59):
Because what I want to talk about.
Is vulnerability and accountability.
And in Christian circles itseems like it is a ultimate Value
to have some measure of accountability.
And while that sounds reallygood in my mind, it is nothing more
than a buzzword.
(04:20):
Now let me explain why.
Partly because of.
And well, let me give you somecontext first, why is this such an
issue and why you know, it.
Why is it that?
Why is it such an issue?
And the issue to me is how dowe own ourselves?
(04:45):
How do we.
What do we do with ourselvesand our own hearts?
What do we do with that?
And is it something thatsomeone else is responsible for or
is it something I'm actuallyresponsible for?
And so let me explain andunpack this a little bit.
(05:05):
And on my effort here is totalk about what I think is a key
issue when it comes to livingconsistent with the contours of our
own hearts and making thechanges that I hear people say all
the time about the changesthey want to make.
(05:30):
And oftentimes I will hear,well, I just.
I just need somebody to be accountable.
And I hear this a lot,actually, from a lot of guys.
And they have anaccountability group or they have
a.
They.
They have somebody holdingthem accountable.
And.
And I don't know that itserves any purpose other than to
(05:53):
put off the person they'retalking to that they have the accountability
and therefore they will change.
And so let me dive into this alittle further because in my mind,
and I have grown up, I am oldenough that it was the ultimate value
(06:15):
in most men's groups to have accountability.
And accountability, by itsvery nature is.
Requires some level ofpersonal honesty and honesty with
someone else.
And those two are very different.
In my mind.
(06:36):
Personal honesty is how honestam I with myself and then how honest
am I with someone else?
And accountability alwaysrequires, at some level, someone
else, someone else asking thequestions, someone else quote, unquote,
holding us responsible orholding us accountable.
(06:59):
And the problem is that themotivation is always directed towards
someone else, which I think isthe tool that is used to actually
believe that that's wherechange comes from.
From.
And so I won't change unless Ihave some measure of accountability.
(07:22):
And I don't buy it.
I really don't buy it.
And part of it is because I'velived that and accountability works
only if I am willing to be honest.
Now I will have probablypeople thinking, well, yeah, but
I think we underestimate howdishonest we actually are with ourselves.
(07:51):
And at some level, if we arehonest, usually what accompanies
it is shame, not guilt,because guilt actually motivates
me to change.
But shame says, I have blownit again.
I have done whatever it is Ishouldn't be doing or whatever my.
My standards say I shouldn'tbe doing.
(08:14):
And therefore, I am a badperson or a bad Christian or a bad
fill in the blank.
And so accountability ends upturning to other people to accomplish
what I have to do myself.
And as long as they're willingto ask the questions, then I can
(08:36):
answer them.
And if the questions are theright ones, then I will answer those.
If they're not the right ones,I'm not going to make the change.
I'm not going to correct themand say, well, you really should
be asking this instead.
And so accountability is aninteresting thing to me.
(08:58):
It's interesting in the sensethat in a lot of Christian circles,
they get really defensiveabout needing accountability because
we believe that we needsomeone else.
Now, on the surface, thatsounds right in terms of community,
I do.
I need someone else to walkalongside of me and understand that.
(09:21):
But accountability tends tocarry with it.
Maybe this is just me, and I'm just.
I'm just too much of arenegade on this stuff, but accountability
carries with it a hammer.
And if somebody asked me theright questions, and let me give
(09:43):
you context for that, becausein the days gone by, in the heyday
of what was the ministry thatactually brought me here to Colorado
and that was Promise Keepers,is that in a lot of men's ministries,
they would hand out cards withaccountability questions on them.
(10:03):
And usually the list ofquestions would be about your eyes
and how you're handling youreyes, and lust and relationships
with other people andrelationships with people that you
probably shouldn't be havingrelationships with, those kinds of
(10:24):
things.
And usually the very lastquestion was, are you being dishonest
with any of the answers youjust gave me?
And it's wild.
It just is downright wild forme to think in those terms, because
if somebody is going to coverfor their inappropriate behavior
(10:47):
toward the opposite sex or inother relationships or being controlling
or whatever that might be, arethey really going to say, yeah, I've
been dishonest that whole time.
I've been lying the whole time?
They're not going to say that.
I mean, let's be real, really.
And so accountability ends upplacing the responsibility for my
(11:12):
own responsibility for myselfon someone else.
And I've been in too manyinteractions with adolescents and
adults that if I don't ask theright question, they will not offer
the information that is neededfor the level of transparency or
(11:35):
authenticity that is neededfor the kind of changes that they're
seeking to make.
And in a Lot of cases I end upoften asking, so what exactly do
you want?
If I ask these rightquestions, you'll answer it.
If I don't ask them, you won'tanswer it.
So therefore you are justifiedin continuing on.
(12:01):
Because I didn't ask the right questions.
Right.
And so accountability worksbecause I have someone else to ask
the questions rather than me.
And if I'm not going to behonest with myself, and in a lot
(12:21):
of cases we're not, so how canI be honest with you?
I mean, if I'm not going towalk the contours of my own heart,
then how in the world are yougoing to walk with me in it?
I can't give away what I don'town, what I don't understand, what
I don't explore.
There's no way I can give it away.
(12:41):
And what I do give away, ifthat is based on a shallow assessment
of what is going on in myheart, then you may believe that
I'm being honest, when in factI am being honest to the degree that
I am willing to look in anykind of way at what's going on there,
but not with the Holy Spiritguiding me to be brutally honest,
(13:05):
which is usually the way thatwe describe this, to be brutally
honest about what's there.
So what does that mean?
What that means is I'm notshading the truth.
I'm not creating soft edges tomake it sound better than it is.
Or one person I read oncesaid, I'm not gilding the lily here,
(13:27):
making it look prettier thanit is.
I'm just calling it for whatit is.
But that requires the otherissue that I wanted to talk about
in this, and that is vulnerability.
And that is the thing that ifwe are going to build the kind of
(13:47):
community we say we want, itdoesn't require accountability.
It requires vulnerability.
And both of them,interestingly enough, have ability
in the root of the wordaccountability or vulnerability.
(14:10):
Vulnerability.
So what does that mean?
Because accountability isoftentimes it's used as an accounting
term.
I open my books, of my life tosomeone else, and now I'm being accountable.
They can look through therecords of my life.
But do we do that?
And like I said before, itultimately requires someone else
(14:34):
to do that because I'm notwilling to do it.
By implication, I'm notwilling to do it.
And so what about vulnerability?
And why is that such an issue?
And I would say that the issueof vulnerability and the issue of
accountability all revolvearound control.
(14:57):
It is the scourge of our time.
And it is the definingcharacteristic in my mind of our
culture today.
It is about control.
It is not about trust or ofvulnerability, which is what is required,
(15:17):
because you can't havevulnerability without trust, and
you can't have trust withoutvulnerability, which is a very famous
quote from Brene Brown.
So what is it?
I mean, let's define our termshere, right?
Because vulnerability meansthat I'm capable of being physically
(15:39):
or emotionally wounded, and Iactually voluntarily place myself
in a position for that toactually happen.
And that's really what it means.
It comes from the Latin wordvulneros, which is wounded in being
wounded, if you will.
And so vulnerability requiresmy willingness to be wounded, not
(16:04):
to be seen, but to be wounded,because I am willing to be seen in
that way.
And that's why control is sucha huge issue with vulnerability.
I have had.
I have just gotten started ina couple of my classes, the groups
that are part of my classes,interestingly, I could say that I
(16:31):
have all the and classes atCCU because I have shame and grace.
I have grief and loss.
I have crisis and trauma.
And those three classes are atriumvirate that is always talking
about vulnerability.
Now, part of the subtitle ofthis podcast is about life living
(16:56):
and sorrow.
And sorrow has a way of makingit so I can't avoid being vulnerable
because I have had somethinghappen that I can't finish the blank.
I can't control.
And so it happens and I haveto adapt to it.
(17:19):
I have to do something with it.
And so ultimately the questionis, why would I want to do something
like that?
And secondly, is it evenhelpful for me to do that?
And the bigger issue isaccountability requires someone else.
(17:42):
Vulnerability requires my choice.
And it starts with myvulnerability or my willingness to
be emotionally or evenspiritually wounded by God himself.
If I don't trust, I am notgoing to be vulnerable.
And that's exactly why werarely do it.
(18:06):
The coin of the realm, if youwill, is all about control.
Accountability gives me somemeasure of control in terms of what
I share and what I don't.
Vulnerability does not.
Most people will equatevulnerability with weakness or an
(18:29):
incapacity to protect oneself.
And while there is some truthto that, it is true that if I am
capable of being wounded, thenI am allowing myself to be open to
the possibility that that will happen.
(18:51):
Doesn't guarantee it.
It really doesn't guarantee it.
And with vulnerability, if Iam going to choose it, ultimately
that is the basis on whichcommunity, closeness and intimacy
is built and so sorrow entersour lives.
It is something we can't doanything about.
(19:13):
And we have a choice to makewhether or not we are going to allow
people to see us as we arerather than create an image of who
we are so that we can lookbetter than we are.
But vulnerability is the basisof intimacy, and intimacy is the
(19:35):
basis of growth.
And so the question that Iasked is, is it actually helpful
to me?
I would say yes, it is.
Actually.
Vulnerability is moreimportant than accountability because
I have to choose to be seen.
And when I choose to be seen,I have to be very, very, very careful.
(19:58):
You get the picture.
Very, very careful of thepeople I choose to be seen by.
Because not everyone istrustworthy enough to handle seeing
what I will be showing them.
And so I need to develop anability to discern the nature of
(20:21):
the people I become vulnerable with.
I don't do that with anyonebecause not everyone has.
Is trustworthy enough for meto do it.
Which takes us into a longerconversation, which I'm not going
to try to tackle tonight, butit takes us into a longer conversation
about do I try, do I bevulnerable with somebody that I want
(20:45):
to try to make trustworthy, ordo I evaluate and discern whether
somebody is trustworthy andthen be vulnerable?
Which the latter is the truerone to follow.
But see, we never have reallydeveloped the capacity to evaluate
(21:11):
other people because we havebeen drilled with this almost religious
level of belief that I cannever evaluate anyone because if
I do, then I'm judging them.
And that on the surface, thatis not true.
(21:36):
But because it's people wedon't want to be evaluated.
So therefore, we won'tevaluate anyone else.
And by doing so, we setourselves up to be wounded.
Not intentionally.
Not intentionally, but we setourselves to be wounded because we
(21:56):
never evaluate the people thatwe take the risk of being vulnerable
with.
And that has to be part of theconversation when we're talking about
vulnerability, because ifwe're going to take the risk and
we have evaluated and seen thenature of the people that we are
choosing to be vulnerablewith, then we are choosing to go
(22:20):
into growth, we are choosingto go into trust, and ultimately
we are choosing to go into theland of being known, which we long
for and we flee from.
We long for and we flee from.
So one of the things that wehave to understand is that vulnerability
(22:44):
requires me to have acommitment to me.
And most people will say, whenyou hear that, that statement that
I just made, there's too manymes in it for most Christians.
And the first thing that comesto their mind is, is I'm being selfish.
Now answer me this.
(23:05):
When you get up in themorning, tomorrow morning, and you
get up and take a shower andbrush your teeth and get ready to
go off to wherever you'regoing off to, are you overwhelmed
with a sense of guilt becauseyou took a shower and brushed your
teeth and had breakfast?
No, we don't.
(23:27):
And because we see thephysical world as being perfectly
appropriate to engage incaring for myself, my body, myself,
everything else.
When it comes to the world ofthe heart, we suddenly say, well,
now I'm being selfish.
When in fact there is thisthing that we can talk about in terms
(23:51):
of self care, which takes usinto another issue.
Because if I am going toengage in caring for my own heart
and the contours of it and thepeople that I invite to be part of
it, then my question thenbecomes, am I of enough value to
(24:13):
protect that heart and to becareful about who I invite into it?
Because if I don't do that,then I am going to be extremely haphazard
and reckless in who I inviteto be a part of my life and who in
a lot of cases, because of ourlack of evaluation of it, ends up
(24:37):
hurting me.
Because I haven't taken thetime to watch and understand and
even be a little educatedabout who's safe and who isn't.
And so my view of my own valueis key for choosing vulnerability.
(24:58):
And when I do that, then I'vegot to have somebody who understands
the gravity of taking the riskof being vulnerable with them.
And generally when you do,those people that are worth the risk
and understand the gravitywill say, wow, I am humbled by your
(25:22):
trust of me to share thatinformation rather than trying to
gain more and more informationbecause that gives them some kind
of meets some kind of need in them.
People that need ourvulnerability are people that are
(25:44):
patently unsafe.
People who understand thegravity of our vulnerability and
go into it with humility and asense of entering in on sacred ground
are people that are profoundlyimportant and safe enough to do that.
(26:05):
So when I engage invulnerability, I need a safe and
ready listener who is in thisfor me, not for them.
And ultimately it requires meto engage in the kind of personal
honesty to choose not becausepeople are asking me the right question,
(26:26):
but because I want to grow, Iwant to be seen, I want to be known.
It scares the spit right outof me.
I nobody is going to debatethat point.
It is scary to be vulnerable.
It is.
But there's a Cost for growth.
(26:47):
And that is one of them.
And that is why it is soimportant to engage in vulnerability
rather than accountability.
In.
In some respects,vulnerability is accountability.
And it is important in termsof even the healing process of our
(27:08):
sorrow, of the things that wehave lost.
We have to choose who we aregoing to be vulnerable with.
And oftentimes the people thatunderstand the gravity of it are
also people who haveexperienced the kind of loss that
we have gone through.
And that's key.
(27:28):
Let me give you an example,and I've used this example before,
particularly in the world ofgrief and loss and sorrow, is Job
the biblical character, thebiblical person whose story is told.
Most writers and mosttheologians believe that Job is probably
one of the oldest books of theBible, and Job is his assets.
(27:55):
And everything are wiped out,including his family.
And his friends come to visit him.
And on the surface, hisfriends look like the kind of people
that are worth trusting andbeing vulnerable with.
And how do I say.
Why do I say that?
Because when they first sawhim, they are stunned into silence.
(28:19):
And they sit for seven dayswith him in silence, which is a remarkable
act of self sacrifice.
It is at the end of that sevendays that they blew it, because they
opened their mouths to decideto communicate to him what they believe
(28:39):
he needed to hear.
Which is really moving fromvulnerability, sitting with somebody
in their grief and sorrow, totrying to fix the problem of their
grief and sorrow, which iskind of what accountability is really
all about.
It's about fixing, not about growth.
Vulnerability is about growthand less about fixing and understanding
(29:02):
that the journey of life withother people is built on vulnerability
and trust.
And I think you probably gotthat by now.
So it's important becausethere are a lot of people out in
the audience that might belistening that will say, well, okay,
how do I engage in this?
(29:23):
And if that's what you'relooking for, then certainty is what
also you're looking for.
And accountability will giveyou the certainty you want.
But certainty doesn't require trust.
Vulnerability does.
And that's the thing that wemove toward.
(29:45):
And the bigger issue that wehave to contend with is trust.
Because trust creates a gapbetween what I know and what I hope
for.
And I have to live in that gapthere with someone else perhaps,
and allowing them to fill thator walk that gap with me.
(30:07):
We as humans hate a lack of closure.
And at least in the world ofgrief, there is a lot of debate about
do we really need closure?
Is that something we really do need?
Or is it just a matter of howDo I embrace the losses that leave
(30:30):
a gap in our lives and wedon't have to fill it.
As a matter of fact, it'salready filled.
Because when somebody dies orwe have a loss, what is left behind,
the hole that's left behind iswhere love exists and where trust
exists.
And so accountability orvulnerability is the question of
(30:55):
the day and of the podcast.
And what do you want to dowith it?
Because accountabilityrequires somebody else.
Vulnerability requires trustand a willingness to be seen and
known.
And that's horrifying, evenfrightening, because we lose some
measure of control, but bydoing so, we gain some measure of
(31:20):
connection, which we alldesperately desire.
And that's what this really isall about.
And how do we go about doingthat, really?
And it's not about how, it'sabout what do I share with whom is
the question.
And that's what we have to gotoward and how we have to move toward
(31:43):
people that way.
Because I can tell you fromthe groups that I've done, even this
semester, and that's true forthe 40 years of counseling I have
done and all the groups andthousands of hours I have spent with
people in groups, that isalways the same thing, that there
is a moment of sacredconnection that happens when people
(32:07):
are willing to trust enough toallow themselves to be seen, because
it's on us to be seen.
It's not on somebody to teardown the stained glass and find out
who's behind it.
It's on us to dismantle thatthing so that we can be seen.
And when we do, we gain notonly a connection with somebody to
(32:32):
walk the journey with us, butwe also gain a little bit of ourselves
back.
And we learn to grow in owningour own hearts.
And that's really where all ofthis leads, is owning our own hearts
enough not only to give it toGod, but to give it to other people
(32:54):
as well.
And it's not throughcondemnation that we're going to
gain it in shame, certainlynot through shame, but through acceptance
and trusting that God loves usenough to that he loves us as we
are, not as we should be.
(33:15):
Because we are never, evergoing to be what we should be.
Because it's an illusion.
And we keep striving for anillusion that cannot be achieved.
We all know that illusions are not.
But yet we keep strivingbecause it's a nice distraction from
the longing we have to be seenand known.
(33:38):
Well, that's it for tonight.
Thank you enough.
That's all my rant aboutvulnerability and accountability
and how that fits into it all.
This is more of a life andliving part of the podcast than the
sorrow specifically.
We'll get back to it.
I can tell you just in my ownjourney through sorrow, the last
(34:00):
episode was on Surprises, andI have had so many people say that
and affirm how often there isan ambush of emotions that we just
can't see coming.
And that's also the case evenin my own journey through sorrow
and the loss of the friendthat I had back in March is that
(34:21):
we seem to get distracted by life.
And it's a welcome distractionuntil some quiet time arises and
there's some time to reflect,reflect on where life is and how
it goes.
And then it's like, ouch, thathurts again.
And the worst question to sayis, am I not any further than this?
(34:44):
When in fact it's anindication of how much further I
am.
And that is very much thejourney through the seasons of our
grief that we experience.
So that's it for tonight.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Be sure to check out thewebsite@sgi-net.org there's lots
of resources there.
(35:05):
There's a particular one inthe works to be unveiled probably
around Christmas time,realistically that you might be interested
in.
It fits in with all the thingsthat I tend to take on in this podcast,
but as well also in theOutpost for the Heart podcasts.
(35:29):
And there is, like I said,coming up next week is a podcast
on the Outpost where I get tointerview somebody that I think you
all might find interesting.
What we're going to do rightnow, because my schedule is so toward
not only with teaching butother things, we are going to go
(35:49):
every other week.
So next week will be the Outpost.
The following week will beunscripted and we will alternate
those and they'll complementone another because I may have some
commentary to provide onwhatever it is I talked about in
the Outpost.
So they will intermingle in alot of ways and that will be part
(36:11):
of this podcast as well.
So if you want to support andincur and be a part of the Ministry
of sgi, you certainly can dothat on the donate button on the
website.
If there's something I've saidor you have some curiosity about,
be sure to use the contactform on the website or just to email
(36:35):
me or DM me on Instagram@sgisginternational on Instagram
and Stained GlassInternational on Facebook.
You can find us find me thereas well if you have any reactions
(36:55):
to some of the stuff I'mtalking about tonight.
Thanks so much for joining me.
I hope to check back in in acouple of weeks.
And until then, love you later.
Bye.
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