Embracing Weakness: The Unlikely Secret to Changing the World
By Sharon K. Evans, published by Our Sunday Visitor in Huntington, IN 2019
Reviewed by Janet Speer
She had me at the title: Embracing Weakness; The Unlikely Secret to Changing the World. Intrigued, but a little wary that weakness and meek shall inherit the earth were synonymous — a theme I had heard from many various angles — I pressed on into Shanon K. Evans’ work. I was pleased to find that in her first book, Evans explores new territory. It would seem the author seeks new understandings of who we are and how we should live as Christians. Her fresh ideas, previously read in publications like the Huffington Post, show a willingness to explore routes we generally trek by tiptoe.
Shannon Evans begins her story with a subject to which we are often drawn. Who doesn’t want to hear about missionaries in Indonesia who bring intelligent Western know-how to a struggling people? Certainly Ms. Evans had the same goal as she enthusiastically embarked on her journey to “fix” things. But the adventure leads her only to the darkest of dissapointments. We are left unsatisfied when she finds herself looking “over” the people; not fully engaged and unwilling to hear their stories. After all, there was a very specific agenda: bring these poor people to Christ. When she discovers the adventure is not what was expected, the author imprisons herself in her house, choosing not to be in intimate proximity among the population she came to serve. The warm euphoric feeling expected only leads to her wishing she were somewhere else. Evans, after all, wanted what any of us would want: to be useful, effective and pleasing to God. After all, if we have these things, we have power.
Using this personal example of mission work, then moving on to marriage, adopting a child and wading through the struggles that accompany these, Shannon Evans leads us into the weightier portion of the book. Her personal journey satisfies our need for storytelling, and her new ideas on spirituality take us into reflection. An example is given when she adopts a child, firm in her belief that power is the crux of parenting. That premise rings true with most of us; after all, the parent knows best and should be an authoritative figure.This, like the mission story, proves to be a falsehood. Power and authority as parenting mantras become as false as the idea that power over impoverished people in Indonesia will bring them out of darkness. It is tempting for Christians to practice their munificence so they can garner God’s approval, and thus the approval of peers and kin. Approval lands us in a powerful place. But it can also disappoint, make us empty, even lonely. A possible path to extract ourselves from this quagmire is to embrace our weakness.
Ms. Evans’ description of weakness is unique, and the reader will experience a new facet of the word. We are weak when we arrogantly believe we have the tools to dig the Third World out of poverty while remaining objective and distant. Even when Evans traveled to the country and lived with its people, she distanced herself from their stories because she perceived herself as the one whose wisdom set her apart. If her job was to bring these people to Christ, she did not need to participate in intimacy. This weakness led to her great despair. It is, as she calls it, a personal poverty. The truth, she discovers, is that Christ loved these people long before she arrived, and her job was to allow a vulnerable spirit that is open enough to listen to stories seldom heard.
The search for power can come in many forms and through “numbing agents,” including drugs, sex, consumerism — even exericise, re warnings of an insatiable need for control. They are symbols of our poverty. Our obsessive need for them should tell us to slow down and “tend to the soul,” allowing weakness to take its course. But these numbing agents steal a part of our reasoning and we lose the objectivity needed to take a step back. If we become weak and vulnerable, we lose power; so we fight it with all our might. But as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, 9-10:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
In addition to Paul’s statement, Shannon Evans believes the temptation of Christ helps us realize that Jesus chose weakness over power. Ultimately his death unravels his followers’ hopes for power, as he dies in the weakest of circumstances. He dies in poverty. That “death” becomes a strong theme. To become an effective and loving parent and wife, Evans had to disassemble, become vulnerable, and allow old notions to die off. She had to practice “solidarity.”
Many readers might move quickly to the solidarity of Polish leader Lechas Walesa, where like-minded people come together to overthrow oppression. But she takes the word in a new direction, using it in tasks as simple as caring for our children. Simply said, if we “belong to one another, we should act like it.” If we are honest with ourselves, we are perfectly willing to be the benevolent giver and instructor, but distance ourselves from full engagement. After all, we know best. What Evans discovers is that old rules of parenting, marriage and missionary work were less than satisfactory because solidarity had not been present. No give and take. This personal revelation leads to depression, failures and ineffectiveness. But they also lead to a map to transformation.
Ah, at last, the happy ending. Transformation! But Ms. Evans, as usual, has a new definition. Transformation is not a neat package where all is perfectly fine. It is not a perfectly fine world. She describes her poverty, convinces us that we have it as well, but now has the gall to tell us transformation is difficult to attain? That the journey is ongoing and usually untidy? But it’s worth the struggle, she says. Surprisingly, she ends her book with concrete steps that can set us on a “solidarity” path we have yet to explore. She invites us to be weak. We are invited to throw off the armor so we, who are impoverished, may authentically be with and respond to those around us. She shows us how to look into the eyes of Third World country dwellers, our child or our spouse, and shed the cloak of power and “rightness.” We see ways to realign our views of others, and in doing so, find the rich possibilities that lie in a relationship that basks in “solidarity.”
Embracing Weakness; The Unlikely Secret to Changing the World is short enough and meaty enough to be used in a Church School class seeking to expand spiritual awareness. It stretches our capacity to love in ways we have not yet explored. Questions in the appendix provide discussion platforms. Our need to expand the way we relate to one another is not new, but Shannon Evans brings fresh information to us that provides fuel for thoughtful reflection. Potentially these concepts just might change our reputations as Christians. Dare we tell the world that we are weak and impoverished? Is it possible for Christians to seek out the “others’” stories? If we choose this path, new possibilities yet unseen may emerge. And it is well worth the effort.
— Janet Barton Speer, PhD is Virginia McKenzie Reeves Endowed Chair of Performing Arts (Professor Emeritus) and Artistic Director of the Lees-McRae Summer Theatre at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, NC and is an elder at Banner Elk Presbyterian Church.
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