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Last night we emerged from our cave of sleep deprivation to attend a blessing for Tennyson at L’Arche. It’s always a pretty great moment for our communities to welcome new babies. Babies are such a sign of hope and newness. Usually we welcome new people to l’Arche who have been broken by institutions, have parents who have recently died or are moving from other difficult situations. A baby is a very different way to come to l’Arche. I was thinking about the subtle ways we form our children as we showed off Scout to the folks at Nehalem. I want the experience of loving and being loved by people with disabilities to be a normative experience. This was such a beautiful start.
One of my favorite moments from our pregnancy and birth experience is the way our friend M reacted. She’s a woman with a severe anxiety disorder who went through years of abuse at state institutions. This has led to violent behavior and her being released from several other living situations. She spends a lot of time, even after 5 years in l’Arche, in fear trying to justify why we should let her stay. Of course, there’s no danger of us “kicking her out” but that’s part of her illness.
Babies bring out the best in M. She becomes gentle and excited. It’s a real transformation. On the day I gave birth she left a message on my phone saying that she was praying for us, that she loved the baby and she loved me. I’d never heard that kind of tone or sincerity from M. There was nothing she was going to get out off us for loving the baby, no justification as to why she should stay attached to her interest in my pregnancy. It was simple and genuine joy in the new life that would be coming to our l’Arche family. We are glad to have M as our “L’Arche Aunt,” or “Large Aunt” as she says.
Her are some pictures from Tennyson’s blessing. We’re also updating flickr pictures like crazy so check out our link to the left for the latest and greatest Scout pix.
I had a great weekend accompanying my friend Joni to the l’Arche at Western Regional Gathering. Each year we have a get together/celebration of all the l’Arche communities in the West (CA, WA, OR). We met in Tacoma this year and had a very special guest. Each year Jean Vanier, l’Arche’s 80 year old founder joins a region for their gathering and this was our year.
This was a very special event because this is the last time Jean will be visiting a Regional Gathering. He’s ready to return to his home community in Trosly, France. He spoke poignantly about growing old and the need to spend time being present to his aging body, to give care to others and finally to receive care from others before he dies.
There were a couple things that surprised me about his conversations with us. He spoke very passionately about his need for Jesus, the sacraments, times of prayer and meditation. L’Arche (at least in the US – especially in the NW) has tended towards what I call a “lowest common denominator spirituality.” While l’Arche grew out of the Catholic church and the experience of being drawn to the crucified, disabled God, more and more our communities are called to welcome men and women from a variety of faith traditions. This has not been don
e well and more and more of my friends who join l’Arche are astonished by the secular humanism that is now the rule of our community life.
In other words, instead of finding creative ways to honor our diversity while standing near to the heart of the God of Israel who called forth l’Arche, the attempt of our community in Portland has been to try and see what we all have in common and to smooth over any potential controversy with tolerance. It’s nasty political liberalism, basically what a community for the disabled would look like if founded by John Rawls. Damn the doctrinarians.
Somehow I was under the impression that this was where Vanier stood on religious diversity. I was wrong. It was pretty clear that he was struggling through this issue and when we talked he directed me to some unpronounceable French theologians who have written on this topic. (Shocking fact 2: French theologians are writing about l’Arche.) But his own deep sense of religious conviction, his rootedness in Catholicism and his very specific call to be near Jesus were all wonderful revelations.
The other surprise was how often he spoke about the impending crisis the disabled in our communities will face in light of the new eugenics. Based on what I’ve heard, most people in my community are pro-choice, pro-eugenics, pro-euthanasia political liberals. Jean spoke about the consistency of our commitment to care for the weak – the unborn, the soon dead, the critically injured, the genetically compromised. I never hear anyone in l’Arche talk about the larger witness of our life to producers of knowledge. That’s because we have lived mostly cloistered from these issues.
I was very encouraged by meeting Jean and experiencing his unbelievable gentleness. Seeing him interact with our friends was the closest I’ve come to being able to understand God’s preferential option for the poor. Jean lavished his love on our weakest, our most profoundly needy. It was a beautiful thing to see, not only from Jean but from all the assistants. To see 200 people, half with disabilities and the other half finding joy and promise in them – it was the kingdom, my friends.
