Shame, Vulnerability, and Resilience
But I loooooooove Brene Brown, I said. I’ve watched her TED talks 1000 times, I said. I can totally adapt them for youth, and themes of Lent, I said, no problem. What a smart idea!
It turns out it was a really smart idea and I’m super proud of this study, but whew, this was a labor of love. Fitting meaty-but-not-overwhelming discussions of vulnerability, shame, guilt, repentance, resilience, and christology into 6 weeks and making them engaging and appropriate for youth took a lot of “back to square one” planning. These topics aren’t linear, but breaking them into different sessions instead of what sounds like a super-dooper fun Vulnerability Weekend Retreat (on zoom, no less!) was obviously key to success. We start with ourselves, and then we move to Jesus, and eventually we invite Brene Brown to the party. I hope Dr. Brown isn’t offended by getting last billing, but hey, at least I never called her a “storyteller.”
Lent can be a dangerous time. There’s so much opportunity in the themes of dust and prayer and imagining a new life while squarely seated in an old life. But so often, we’re surrounded by substitutionary atonement, the shame of contributing to Jesus’ death, the shame of “being a sinner” instead of being “one who sins.” Language matters, especially when we’re talking about identity, and youth are so wonderfully sensitive to that. They have enough of their own challenges without fighting implicit or explicit shaming from their church too, all in the name of welcoming the resurrected Jesus.
In this study, I do my best to paint vulnerability as a source of “ewwwwww, feelings!” but also as the ultimate source of strength for us, redeemed by Jesus, who is God-made-vulnerable. We talk about shame narratives vs. guilt narratives with examples and imaginings and opportunities for reflection. We remember that we are worthy of love and belonging, indeed created for love and belonging, even though we receive tons of messages to the contrary all of the time. We cast repentance as essential for fully participating in any and all of the relationships that we were created for - both spiritual and interpersonal. The new life of Easter becomes an opportunity to transform broken relationships by imagining new life in the midst of them and a reminder that fragility is the source of strength.
I’m particularly proud of some work with the “snake lifted up” passage from Numbers (Numbers, of all places!); which ends with God (through Jesus) transforming the vulnerability that we think is killing us into the thing that allows us to live. Pretty good, right? I’m excited to tell my youth about that one.
Click below for a sample to see whether this study might be right for your group this year (or next year! Go ahead and stock up! :)), and if you use it, I hope you’ll tell me how it goes!
