Chapel Talk, 2007 September 19: Your Vulnerabilities are Your Greatest Strengths / John McGiff

In depicting his life as a college student in New York City, Art teacher John McGiff, describes how he came to understand that art is a medium to which he filtered his feelings and frustrations: "Dr. Akin chanted this mantra to us with regularity: ” Your vulnerabilities are your greatest strengths.” At first I couldn’t wrap my head around this idea because the phrase sounds like a contradiction: strength is perceived as the power to dominate and vulnerability is an opening in one’s protective armor, so how could one possibly be understood as the other?."