St. John the vulnerable

As my brother Nicholas says, “if vulnerability was color then it would look rather stunning on everyone”. Nicholas is my older brother, (25 whole minutes) for which my mother said felt like an eternity. Its interesting, that the first thing that people ask my brother and I is if we ever played pranks on people when we were younger. We have heard this line a thousand times from hundreds of different lips. Sometimes I feel like original thoughts died with original sin, but I digress. Without fail we look at each other and smile like children, and respond in perfect unison, “our mother told us that we could only use our twin powers for good, never for evil. After hearing this the inevitable happens, people go into a reckless preamble about how they wished they had a twin. They say outrageous and outlandish things that would never really of happen if they had someone that looked like them. They fantasize about all of the mischief they would have caused, all of the girls they would have shared. (its funny how doing the wrong thing makes people feel so vibrant) doing the right thing never inspired such smiles. At church on Sunday night we learned more about St. John the Baptist. I think another fitting name would have been St. John the vulnerable. To others he was stoic and strong, never weak. But with Jesus he was like a child.. Gentle in spirit he had the type of joy around Jesus that people have when they think no one else is looking. Those moments were social grace isn't a concern, were cool points have yet to be tallied. Like my incredible replica Nicholas and St. John I want to be open to those vulnerable child like moments that escape my more jaded quarter life self......