I am vulnerable. Vulnerability is a strength not a weakness.

.... when I am working away so much .........
I cannot even handle my emails. 

Next week will be when I get back to you.

But the cement mixer in my mind keeps churning. 

I am bumping into new humans all the time. 

Leading the sessions means that some of my principles and practice leak out all the time.
Level Five Communication.
Beautiful Imperfection.
Disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.
There is no such a human as a difficult human - only difficult behaviour.
Love like you have never been hurt.
I am vulnerable.
Vulnerability is a strength not a weakness.
Refresh the irritation.
Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable ......

And then, later, humans talk.

Humans start to reveal their inner feelings - the darker - vulnerable side.

I feel the pain here.

I feel the depth of the human person.

Not just the surface human ...........

...... and I cannot tell you - much about it ..........

But the mind, the cement mixer again, 

takes a trip to a past experience which I can tell you about.

Like this real incident below.

I get it coming at me ....... because I can see the video in
myHeadTUBE

and feel the feelings in
myFeelingsTUBE

...... so I will share it with you.

It is a slice out of my first book called 'Gutter Feelings'.

Join me in this place ................. I was running an inner city club - working with gangs who loved the thrill of violence .........

The boys were outside kicking the club door again.

They were on a suspension from club. Only a week before they had reached a peak of violence. They had been smashing numerous car windows and stealing from them. They then steamed the club swinging iron bars and broken cues. Then six of them had acquired a scaffold pole and rammed it with force at my office window. All our windows are made of unbreakable glass (it was either board them up and live in darkness, or grill them up and create an environment of hostility and defence – or this type of glass).

It wasn’t therefore the window that broke but the frame smashed and splintered as the glass bent to allow the metal pole through. I was upset because ‘Gloria’ my canary Gloria has got to flying for some time. Yes, she is OK thanks!

Now the boys were back, eight of them. I went out to face the hostility while the door was locked behind me. They were only sixteen/seventeen years of age but I faced a barrage of all sorts of abuse and questioning. Legs apart, arms by their sides, fists clenching and unclenching, jaws tight and teeth prominent, the leaders of the group were frustrated and angry.

I could have stayed with my black to the closed club door and facing them stood my ground. That is what I felt like doing.

It was much harder to wander across the pavement towards them, thirty feet away. I felt I had to, though. Still chatting in a warm but firm way, I bent down, feet in the gutter and bum on the kerb. The boys had moved with me, still slagging me off. Circling me and kicking stones around with aggression. I picked up the pebbles from the gutter and flicked them across the road with my thumb. I felt my back vulnerable as they moved around me like restless wolves.

Before long, however, I was joined in the gutter by one, and then two, until most sat in a line talking while the others crouched in the road, facing me, only moving for cars going past. We chatted on – and the words became friendlier and the conversation more positive – that leads into another story, but…

The analysis of this was – I had deliberately taken a non-aggressive body posture. I had made myself vulnerable, very hard to do under such circumstances (my trained mind told me to do it, my emotions were telling me to run in and slam the door or at least keep my back protected). The boys had ‘paced’ me and had followed me into a non-aggressive posture. They had a limited repertoire in dealing with conflict – ‘Fight or flight’ – i.e. fight your way out of aggro – or, if well down the pecking order – damn well run!

I have a larger repertoire and was able to think alongside my strange emotions and decide on how best to steer the situation, morally, verbally, and non-verbally.

Reading and understanding body language isn’t just an interesting subject – in a hostile environment it can be dangerous not to.
It is an important part of letting God live through us.
Not doing it can also be insensitive, non-developmental and not of the Kingdom.

That is non-shalom.

‘Blessed are the Shalom-makers’.

.