Weakness is strength

I listened to a speaker today talk about how the world of today is designed around strength. We want to be strong, we want our weapons to be potent, our countries to be powerful, our armies to be overwhelming. Only by being strong are we strong, goes this very martial form of thinking.

But he quoted a book by Jean Vanier, who asserts, "Weakness is strength." What a thing to say! What strength is there in weakness? It turns out all the strength in the world. All I can think of as I consider this is how young David, the ruddy faced young boy of Jesse, was the only one brave enough to stand up to the big and boastful Philistine named Goliath. Everyone knows how that turned out.

In humility, we demonstrate our trust in God. In gentleness, we show our love, which comes from God. In vulnerability, we show our faith, a witness to the might of God. This last is what David did. And finally, in age, we acquire wisdom, fruit of the Word of God. All of these virtues, all the virtues of the Beatitudes, are the virtues of those who dare to be small, meek, and powerless. Big deeds of strength and war are the ways of the Roman gods of long ago, or the Greek heroes - ones like Achilles, whose weaknesses were not their strength, but their soft underbelly. Not so Christian saints and heroes. Our God was the one who came not to be served, but to serve. Our martyrs were not warriors dying in battle, but ordinary people rising to greatness by peacefully refusing to give up their faith at sword-point.

Weakness is strength. Sounds a little like 1984 to say it, but relying on God's strength, and not our own, allows us to tap into the universe's only real power. Save for that, we are only reeds blowing in the wind.