"In Gemeinschaft leben" hat den Untertitel "Meine Erfahrungen". Ich kenne bisher kein Buch, das in so guter und umfassender Weise das Innenleben einer Kommunität und ihrer Mitglieder wiederspiegelt. Vanier schreibt sehr persönlich, grundehrlich, bodenständig und gleichzeitig sehr bewegt, innerlich und nah.

Er schaut auf die schönen Dinge und die schweren. Sein Anliegen ist, dass gemeinsames Leben gelingt und zu tatsächlichem Wachstum führt. Er schreibt Sätze wie: "Die Gemeinschaft ist der Ort, an dem unsere Grenzen, Ängste und Egoismen offenbar werden. Wir entdecken die eigene Armut und die eigenen Schwächen, die Unfähigkeit, sich mit einigen zu verstehen, die Blockaden, gestörten Gefühle und sexuellen Empfindungen, jene Wünsche, die unersättlich scheinen, die Frustration und die Eifersucht, den Haß und die Zerstörungswut." ( Edition Aufatmen, 1993, Seite 45)

Ein nüchternes und zugleich enthusiastisches Buch. Vanier selbst ist Gründer der "L'Arche", einer katholischen Gemeinschaft, die weltweit vertreten ist und einen ganz besonderen Auftrage hat: Dort leben Nichtbehinderte und Behinderte Menschen gemeinsam zusammen.

Dieses Buch halte ich für ein Muss, wenn man in Gemeinschaft lebt oder sich dafür interessiert.

Links: Die Arche Deutschland, Jean Vanier bei Wikipedia, Jean Vanier Homepage (fr).

I am sure all of us can imagine some point in our life where any one of these scenarios (or like ones) were true. In fact, in the West, we all have this obsession with wanting to grow up and mature. don't we? This obsession has actually led us to believe that "maturity = independence."

However, is this notion that "maturity=independence" a hindrance to our maturing as human beings? If "maturity=independence" then, in order to reach maturity, doesn't logic dictate that we should strive to become as independent as we can? Does independence really lead to maturity though? Real, deep, true, lasting, and holistic maturity? Or does independence actually lead us elsewhere?

Is our obsession with independence a reason why there seems to be a lack of deep maturity in adults today?

What if true maturity does not equal independence?

"We do not discover who we are, we do not reach true humanness, in a solitary state; we discover it through mutual dependency, in weakness, in learning through belonging."
Jean Vanier - Becoming Human

Esther de Waal escribe con respecto a la regla de San Benito: " Es chocante ver cómo el abad y el ecónomo del monasterio tienen un cuidado constante por los hermanos, por cada uno en particular, en su unicidad, más que por la comunidad en bloque, ideal que parece que da vergüenza a la ideología contemporánea. La vida en común no es una idea abstracta o un idealismo. Sin duda, san Benito habría apreciado el aforismo de Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "Aquel que ama a la comunidad la destruye; el que ama a los hermanos es el que verdaderamente la construye."

(Jean Vanier, "La comunidad. Lugar del perdón y de la fiesta.", PPC 1998, p.31)

For most of my adult life I've looked to the outside, to others, for ways to unearth and unload my burdens--only to discover, at long last, that the door to healing lies deep within my own heart. Granted, it took me six decades of floundering, wandering, seeking to come to that realization. Having been raised in the RC church, with its emphasis on "God is up there," conditioned me to look that way. Gingerly testing the notions that "the Kingdom of God is within" and "You are Buddha" has led to neither paradise nor nirvana. A seemingly bottomless reservoir of pain keeps begging for attention, age-old wounds require attendance, and heaps of (im-)perfection long to be embraced. (I'm beginning to wonder whether it's all my "stuff" or whether I'm picking it up from others or had it dumped on me in vivo; you know, as original sin or karma.) 

Jean Vanier puts it this way: "In our times there is a danger of thinking that everyone may become perfectly healed and find perfect unity within themselves and with others. This type of idealism is rampant everywhere. ... And each day new techniques are born which will bring about this long-awaited healing. Personally I am more and more convinced that there is no perfect healing. Each human being carries their own wounds, their own difficulties of relationships and their own anguishes. It is a question of living day by day with this reality and not in a state of illusion ..." (my emphasis**).

* In Buddhist practice, sympathetic joy is called mudita, a Sanskrit word meaning rejoicing in others' good fortune. It is traditionally regarded as the most difficult of the four virtues or “sublime attitudes” for a practitioner to cultivate. The others are loving-kindness or benevolence, compassion, and equanimity. To show mudita is to celebrate happiness and achievement in others even when we are facing tragedy ourselves.

** See also related posts by typing "wounded" in the Search box at the top-right corner of this page.

Jean Vanier. (1986). Man and women he made them. p.3-4.

Tu aimes te dépasser ? Les handicapés intellectuels aussi ! Vois comment ils aident avec cœur des jeunes déficients d’Haïti.

Cap vers les Antilles
C’est quoi, l’Arche ? C’est une communauté qui offre aux personnes handicapées intellectuellement un foyer où elles se sentent appréciées et utiles. À l’Arche Carrefour d’Haïti, tout le monde travaille ensemble, dans un atelier, selon ses capacités. On y fait du mamba, c'est-à-dire du beurre d'arachides. Certains écalent les cacahuètes, d'autres les torréfient dans une barrique au-dessus d'un feu de charbon, d'autres les broient à l'aide d'un moulin. On produit aussi du miel, du maïs et on élève de petits animaux. De quoi occuper tout le monde et gagner un peu d'argent.

Les plus jeunes fréquentent l'école «Cœurs contents». La classe de l'Arche est aussi ouverte aux enfants du quartier. Chacun apprend à son rythme.

Une famille pour Ismaël
Il y a quelques années, le curé a trouvé un enfant de 4 ou 5 ans abandonné. On l'a tout de suite accueilli à l'Arche Carrefour. Ismaël souffre de paralysie cérébrale. Il ne parle pas, ne marche pas, mais il voit et entend tout. Aujourd'hui âgé d'une dizaine d'années, il sait manger seul. Et surtout, il a découvert une famille.

Québec ♥ Haïti
Haïti est un des pays les plus pauvres du monde. Les deux Arches du pays manquent d’argent pour s’occuper de leurs 65 pensionnaires. C’est pourquoi les huit communautés de l’arche du Québec leur viennent en aide.

«Cette année, nous avons fait deux activités pour Haïti, relate Marie-Josée Hardy, qui réside au foyer La Moisson, de l'Arche Mauricie. D'abord, une vente de t-shirts. Comme dessin, on a choisi deux bateaux avec des gens qui se donnent la main. Cela représente les deux arches du Québec et d'Haïti qui s'entraident. On les a tous vendus !»

Ensuite, les pensionnaires ont organisé une vente de garage, qui a très bien marché. «On a aussi fabriqué des tirelires pour chacun des trois foyers de l'Arche Mauricie et à l'Atelier, dit Marie-Josée. Pendant toute l'année, les gens donnent. Tout va à Haïti.»

L'Arche est une organisation internationale fondée en 1964 par le Canadien Jean Vanier. Il voulait sortir les personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle de l'oubli et de l'indifférence. Il existe aujourd'hui plus de 130 communautés de l’Arche, dans une trentaine de pays. Leurs 5 000 membres forment de véritables petites familles. L'entraide est un principe fondamental de l'Arche et plusieurs pays du Sud sont jumelés à des pays du Nord, comme Haïti et le Québec.

On compte au Québec 224 000 personnes ayant une déficience intellectuelle. Les huit communautés de l'Arche en accueillent 123.

Haïti en bref
Superficie : 28 000 km2
Population : 8,5 millions d'habitants (Québec : 7,6 millions)
Capitale : Port-au-Prince
Espérance de vie : 52 ans (80 ans au Canada)
Haïti occupe la partie ouest de l'île d'Hispaniola, dans la mer des Antilles. Haïti est le moins développé des pays des Amériques : sept habitants sur dix vivent sous le seuil de la pauvreté.

Happy New Year to all of you, & especially my differently abled sisters and brothers. And my heart goes out to your parents whose love knows no bounds ... you are heroes, indeed...Jean Vanier has books you can read to help you along the way. Even if your kid is not different, then too read him for inner strength.

Lord of this universe, I pray for us, the uncaring ones, to give us the Spirit to love our fellow women and men who have more challenging lives than us. Help us to make this world a better place for them...

Images: I thank Laughteryoga and UN for the photos. They say that images speak more than words. So I have found their images the best to convey the spirit of New Year. Thanks to both of you, again...

for your friday afternoon entertainment: katy st. clair's uncouth and heartwarming essay on why her group home friends love huey lewis and the news, and why developmentally disabled people need to take back the word "retarded".

i dare you to read this in your cube and not bust out howling.

The play is going really well -- we've sold out almost every night, so it's great fun. There's nothing quite as discouraging as working your butt off and then performing to a crowd of seven.

In other news, apparently Brittney Spears figures the way to get her career back on-track is to appear on Sesame Street.  I have two serious questions about this:

1. Why, precisely, does she think children are her target audience?

2. Who on earth made this casting call? Is Sesame Street not popular enough; they figure they have to get (and I use the term loosely) "pop stars" to boost the ratings? I don't know; maybe they felt sorry for the girl. I do. I feel sorry for most celebrities, especially child celebrities. There's nothing quite as absurd as fame in our current culture -- probably because now we have the technology to maintain 24/7 surveillance, which we choose to exercise on famous people instead of pedophiles. But hey. What do I know?

Tomorrow's Trust linked to a really neat article about Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche homes for people with mental and physical disabilities. I particularly liked this quote: "Keep dreaming, ...keep hoping and [do] not get caught up in the sickness of our time, depression." Amen to that. Our time lends itself particularly well to anxieties and unhappiness. It's nice to see there are still people willing to stand against it without being devoured by cynicism.

Some other nice quotes:

Do something different with your lives, he urged the young people . "We don't have to be like a bunch of cows or sheep."

"Terrible loneliness, fear of rejection, inner pain. Perhaps many of you have lived this?"

"You are more beautiful that you dare suspect."

Cheers,
Caryn

                            Jean Vanier   -- Letters of L'Arche

Community is the place of forgiveness. In spite of all the trust we may have in each other there are always words that wound, self-promoting attitudes, situations where susceptibilities clash. That is why living together implies a certain cross, a constant effort and an acceptance which is daily and mutual forgiveness.
Community and Growth

One of the things that we discover when we live with the poor, is that they awaken our hearts as we tell each other's stories; they open us up to people; but they also reveal our own poverty.
Address to Lambeth Conference, July '98

We shouldn't seek the ideal community. It is a question of loving those whom God has set beside us today. They are signs of God.
Community and Growth

My hope is that more and more people will discover that the peace we all yearn for is not just the work of governments but the task of each one of us. We can all become makers of peace.
Finding Peace

God is not to be found in the ideal but is hidden in the poverty of the present moment, in all that is broken and inadequate in our communities and in our own hearts.
Letter from Trosly, August '03