As part of
the 31 for 21 challenge, every Wednesday during October I am celebrating an unreasonable
Canadian who has inspired me with their courage and vision—through their
writing or their advocacy— for a world where all are welcome. Today I celebrate
Jean Vanier.
Jean Vanier was so unreasonable, in
1964 he dared to welcome two men from an
institution for people with intellectual disabilities to live with him in a
little home he called “L'Arche,” after Noah's ark, in Trosly France. This small
act of faith and daring was the beginning of L’Arche, a movement that grew quickly as this new way of
sharing life together in community with people who would otherwise be shut away
in institutions attracted many young people. And Vanier himself began traveling
and speaking about his own life-changing experience of coming to know people
with developmental disabilities. Today, there are 130 L'Arche communities in 30
countries on six continents.
Born in 1928 in Switzerland, where his father was serving as a Canadian
diplomat, he is the son of Governor-General Georges Vanier and Pauline Vanier,
hence he is a Canadian and we are proud to claim him! Maclean’s magazine
(September 4, 2000, p. 33) writes about Vanier: For nearly four decades, Jean
Vanier has travelled the world fashioning a network of homes where people with
developmental disabilities, volunteers and a sprinkling of staff live together
in community. “Those we lock away and think worthless,” he says, “have the
power to teach and even to heal us. We are all ‘broken’ in some way,” he
believes. . . . “When you start living with people with disabilities,” he says,
“you begin to discover a whole lot of things about yourself.” He learned that
to “be human is to be bonded together, each with our own weaknesses and
strengths, because we need each other.” Tall and stooped, Vanier radiates the
strength of a man who has fought his own inner battles and surfaced with peace.
Vanier has written many books, including Becoming Human, Finding Peace,
Made for Happiness, Encountering the Other, and Befriending the Stranger, and a wonderful refection that is pure
poetry, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus Through the Gospel of John. He
has won many awards, but is mostly a kind, humble man filled with a gentle
spirit and great insight into what it means to be fully human. His faith
certainly unpins and drives his life, and yet there is something so open and
inviting that even those without any named faith are drawn to him. His teeth
are crooked, his eyebrows now wild, but his heart, I think, is as straight and
true as God makes them.
In his introduction to Our Life Together: A Memoir in Letters,
he writes:
People have described L’Arche as a radical movement. It was born in the
mid-1960s when many young people, including myself, were looking for something
different, searching for something to follow other than the ladder of material
success and individual accomplishment. Choosing community life and a life among
the poor may have seemed strange or radical, but to my mind it was radical only
in the sense of the word that means “touching the roots,” the roots of our
humanity.
L’Arche is rooted in love. We live in community with those with intellectual
disabilities because as human beings we seek naturally to love and be loved:
each of us wants relationships where our value as a person—with our frailties
and poverty—is recognized, affirmed and celebrated. Each person, whatever his
or her abilities or disabilities, strengths or weaknesses, is important and sacred.
This idea is not unique to L’Arche, and it’s not new or revolutionary! It is
the Gospel message. It is the essence of what it means to be human and to be
Christian. We discover how we can be healed by those who are the most
vulnerable. It’s not a question of going out and doing good to them; rather,
receiving the gift of their presence transforms us.
I’ve never really considered myself a radical. I’m trying to live the
Gospel message as best I can, and I hope always to be touching the roots. One of
the strengths of L’Arche is that on the whole we are loved by many people. We
are seen as being with the poor and the downtrodden. We are seen as a place of
mutual trust. In L’Arche we trust each other: people with disabilities feel
trusted and allowed to be and to grow, and feel that they can do things and
work things out; and assistants, those who come to L’Arche to live with the
disabled, learn to accept and to trust themselves in all that they are. Trust
is founded on the belief that you are important, that you are precious.
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