Vomit, mice, and intimacy. In that order.

Michael had the stomach flu yesterday, so I have been operating in terror of inevitable contagion for the past 24 hours. I always do this when someone has a stomach bug. I'm petrified of vomit. My initial plan was to avoid all food until a suitable amount of time had passed, but I got hungry. Fear of regurgitation is common, I've found, but usually entirely unnecessary. I mean that most of the time my fear is unrealized, so it wastes energy that could be better employed elsewhere. Mice are another irrational fear of mine. I tend to think of those two things as my only real fears, until I'm confronted by people who are particularly brave.

I started working outside of the home for the first time in an eon. It's a part-time gig, but challenging nonetheless. I'm teaching at a school where I learn more from my students than they learn from me. It's the coolest job ever, and I feel like I've won the lottery because this place gives me a paycheck for showing up and spending time with these remarkable young people.

My drama students were assigned to tell a personal story. I asked them to hone in on a plot line and deliberately employ music, set, costume; all to tell a true story about themselves. My thinking here was that they could learn to eliminate extraneous information and stick to plot, while inviting the rest of us to know them better. These kids took this assignment so seriously. Some of the stories were comical and some were tragic, but all of them were raw and powerful. Several of these young people told stories that they had never told before, and they did it in a way that was heart-wrenching without being contrived. They spoke of life without self pity or melodrama. They told real stories about their own experiences in a way that offered such transparency. I am in awe of that willingness to be known. These are teenagers in the process of knowing themselves, yet they were willing to show some window into their very core to a room full of people who could judge them or condemn them. That is a special kind of bravery.

I've been thinking about what it is that leads to the ability to share oneself so freely. Is it self- assurance? There must be some of that. Is it trust in the audience? That certainly plays a role. There's a willingness to be known. It's rather complex. There's humility, and security, and a deep interest in relationship. On the whole, the process seems deeply biblical. God invites us to know and be known, not only by Him, but by one another. You and I have something of a responsibility for cultivating environments where those entrusted to us will be safe enough to share the deep realities. We must know that we are intimately known and loved by our Creator, so that we can know and love those around us. Why do we struggle so much to do this? I think that most of us have no desire to be intimately known, ourselves, and we don't want to have to deal with the messy bits of others. Intimacy is terrifying.

Watching these kids share their stories was very instructive. There was a lot of hugging. There was a lot of, "Hey, I didn't know you struggled with that. Me too!" There was a mutual acknowledgement of the terrific courage involved in telling these stories. There was zero condemnation or judgement, just love and acceptance. "Perfect love casts out all fear," as the bible tells us. May we apply such courage and love to the relationships in which we participate. May we be brave enough to cultivate intimacy.