An illustration showing a woman removing armour. Photo: Joe Jones.
Thought for the Week: Jo Dales casts off the armour
‘The Light teaches me not to value my own personal qualities, but the Spirit in me.’
A word often used in Quaker circles is ‘vulnerability’. We are encouraged to be open and vulnerable to other people. I realise how prone I am to put on armour, to ‘prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet’. Will what I say be accepted? Will I appear stupid or ignorant? Am I likeable? But to be preoccupied with such thoughts is an offence against truthfulness, and it also prevents me from being open to the other, to listening and understanding. The armour can also be used to defend myself against myself, to avoid catching myself out in my selfishness and arrogance, or, indeed, in some kind of false humility, which I may use to avoid taking on responsibilities or speaking out when circumstances call for it. The Light that Quakers invoke exists to reveal such stratagems and show me a way out of them. It’s hard going, but it doesn’t mean incessant breast-beating. Shedding my coat of armour may teach me to value myself as unique and precious.
