The Wisdom Of Tenderness
Tomorrow there will be another great program on Speaking of Faith, hosted by Krista Tippett. She will interview the Canadian philosopher and Catholic social innovator, Jean Vanier, who founded a community centered around people with mental disabilities, L’Arche, that has now become a global movement.
“He has spent his life practically exploring the most basic, paradoxical teachings of Christianity — notions about power in humility, strength in weakness, and light in the darkness of human existence — that resonate as Christmas draws near.”
“He follows Gandhi’s good advice, he tells me, that none of us can change the world; what we can change is ourselves. Vanier has always insisted that L’Arche communities are not a ’solution’ to the fact of disability in our world, and the human challenge of that, but a ’sign’ of another way forward.”
“His movement works with people with mental and intellectual disabilities — and does not treat them as problems to be solved. They are honored as a mystery of the human condition — the simple fact that some human beings have been and always will be born with brokenness that is physically rooted, visibly debilitating.”
“But Jean Vanier the philosopher and wise soul has long seen through the true challenge humanity faces before this mystery. He asks, ‘How do we stand before pain? Why are we frightened of people with disabilities?’ After a lifetime steeped in these questions, he answers, it is because we all struggle so fiercely to subdue, deny, and hide the suffering and imperfections in ourselves. Core members at L’Arche are often transformed by the practical love and care they receive. But equally dramatically, the able-bodied, strong-minded individuals who come to share life with them quickly learn that they too are being healed, made whole.”
I get excited every time I hear Jean Vanier speak or read his book. He articulates so clearly the value system to which we ascribe and attempt to live in our work with the poor at City House.
