On Strength and Vulnerability

I was reminded today that I talk a lot about strength. I speak broadly on divine Defiance and rightly so. I speak on these things because, well, we need them. The world is difficult, and to be honest, feeling the need for strength is one of the reasons we need our faith. It is one of the hardest things I have to do to remind my people that there is nothing I can give them, nothing the Forces can give them, that they do not already have. We are all made of the Forces, including strength and defiance and the ability to survive and thrive that is ours from the beginning. I find that thought comforting, but it is difficult when someone is struggling. 

Crom, hear your child. Remind me of the strength that I possess, and add your warcry to the battle before me.

But, my loves, if I have, through error or omission, ever led you to believe that strength has only one form, or can only exist in planting your feet, please let me right a wrong I have done you. Vulnerability, the need to ask for help, is not failure.  It is not the opposite of strength. It is a path to it. If you are struggling with the need for help, the need to communicate with others, understand that this is strong too. That bravery comes, sometimes, in letting go and retreat. When we throw our chests open and chance others seeing that we are not the bulwark in the storm all the time, we are doing something strong. When we uplift others who do so, we encourage a divine society that will uplift us when we must do the same. 

The defiance in this case comes from not laying down and giving up. It comes from seeking wisdom, from accepting help and joining in. It comes from becoming an active, self-reflective agent in your own fate. It comes from being able to give help back as you can, to find ways to grow for yourself, to forge a new path as you heal. It comes from living well. 

But what about those days where there is no defiance left? What about the day the warrior is a child? When the world seems to stop turning? When you lay at the bottom of yourself and have nothing left to give, nothing left to ask? Those days come. They always do. And let me be explicitly clear - those days, when there is no strength left, are the days we shine the brightest. They. Are. Okay. Stripping everything away and looking at the core of yourself, your inner child, changes us. We are changed, and we have the amazing opportunity to learn how to get up. Not everyone gets that chance, because I will not lie and say that there aren't times that that darkest place wins for some. And they will wander and try again. But if you are here, if you have been transformed by that very unique door, I am happy. You understand defiance by its absence. I'm glad you're here. 

Weakness is a difficult word. We associate so much with it - the concept that whatever is weak will break, that it cannot support anyone, that it is lesser. But I find that, in the hands of those who can reflect and understand it, it can become an important tool in understanding your Divine Self and your path in this world. I will not say, you are not weak. Maybe you are. Maybe this is a time where you need to...or should...break. I will ask, though, that you remember it is part of a cycle. That it is not a statement of your character. It is just a bad day.