Alfred Nobel's will calls for the honouring of those who have greatly contributed to fraternity among human beings across the world. It is 51 years since a Canadian, Lester Pearson, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Canadians in particular should warmly endorse Jean Vanier, for his peacemaking, ecumenism and humanitarianism, as an eminently deserving recipient of the Peace Prize. (...)
Source: Globe and Mail, September 10, 2008
This is the first instalment in a continuing correspondence between Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche, a worldwide group of communities for the disabled, and Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown.
During the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. rose up to bring justice to the blacks of the United States. His dream of brother- and sisterhood flowed from his deep belief that every human being is important and valuable, that everyone has a right to be free and have a place in our society. This dream flowed from his faith in Jesus and the Gospel message: Each person is important, each person is a child of God.
My life in L'Arche flows from the same conviction. Our communities want to witness the beauty and value of each person, whatever their culture, religion, abilities or disabilities.
This conviction gives me strength, and I feel united to many people who believe in this universal brother- and sisterhood - people working amongst immigrants and refugees, people working with (or for) people with disabilities or with other difficulties, with those caught up in the drug world, in the world of prostitution, in the prison world; people working for justice and peace in South America, in the Caribbean, in Africa; all those people who are struggling for greater, universal justice and peace.
(...)
Source: Saturday's Globe and Mail, Sept. 27, 2008
An interview with L'Arche founder Jean Vanier and theologian Stanley Hauerwas.
by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Jean Vanier: In meeting people with disabilities, many people discover something about themselves. A lot of people will stay because they’re in a safe place to deal with their own violence and anger. We can talk about it. There’s a discovery of who they are in their brokenness. But there is a meaning to this. It’s not just a good experience. There is meaning in bringing together the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich. (...)
Source: Sojourners Magazine, April 2009
In the fifteenth instalment, to conclude his series of articles, Ian Brown refers to L’Arche and to Jean Vanier. He read Jean’s last book, Our Life Together, and featured it on his weekly CBC Radio One program, Talking Books. “Jean,” he says, “is the world's foremost thinker and philosopher on the rights of the disabled.….”
With respect to the L’Arche model, he adds: “Instead of integrating the handicapped into the normal world, he calls for the able-bodied to be integrated into the world of the handicapped, to live among them—because that way, we will learn more.”
There is something original about this last comment. It has been ages since L’Arche has been described in such terms. Let’s forget the politically incorrect vocabulary—his choice of words still touches, at one and the same time, the originality and the radical nature of L’Arche—and see the comment into its original context.
The Vanier Letters Part V. A discussion between Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown and Jean Vanier, the Canadian-born founder of L'Arche
Am I fearful of death? No, I cannot say I am. Once, when I was in the navy, I fell from a ship into stormy waters roughed up by strong winds. I lost consciousness immediately on hitting the water. As I had a huge lifebelt around me, I was carried far, far away by the winds until I was picked up by a little boat that was sent to save me. As they lifted me from the waters, I regained consciousness. I could have slipped into life after death without realizing it. Many people die as if they are falling asleep. They wake up in a different world, a world of light, of peace and extreme tenderness.
Do I have fears today? Maybe a fear of emptiness, of a void, of anguish. Today, I have energy - what will it be like when I can do nothing but wait, waiting for a visit or longing for a moment of inner quiet, a peace, a gentle presence of God? I will not fret today about what might happen tomorrow. Today, I live moments of quiet peace when I am not doing anything - just present to life, to creation and to God. Prayer can be a true place of rest. Prayer can also be a cry of pain and anguish, of loneliness. I suppose that is what I fear most. But I imagine that all will be well when the time comes.
You asked me what will happen as I slip into this other world of light, of peace, of extreme tenderness of life after death. Here is what I believe: I have lived all my life in faith and in trust, so I will continue to live in this faith. I trust in life and in people; I trust in my own heart and spirit; I trust in love, in God, in the struggle to be more loving, more truthful. I trust in creation, the birds, the flowers and the seasons. (...)
Source: The Globe and Mail, Feb. 2009
The Vanier Letters Part 2. A discussion between Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown and Jean Vanier, the Canadian-born founder of L'Arche
I have always wanted to write a book called "The Right to be a Rotter." A fairer title is perhaps, "The Right to be Oneself."
One of the great difficulties of community life is that we sometimes force people to be what they are not: We stick an ideal image on them to which they are obliged to conform. We then expect too much of them and are quick to judge or to label. If they don't manage to live up to this image or ideal, then they become afraid they won't be loved or that they will disappoint others. So they feel obliged to hide behind a mask. Sometimes they succeed in living up to the image; they are able to follow all the rules of community. Superficially this may give them a feeling of being perfect, but this is an illusion.
Source: Globe and Mail, September 2008
The Vanier Letters PartIV On War and 'Human Smoke'. If pacifism is traitorous, what hope is there for peace? Is any war a just war? The exchange of reflective letters continues between Globe and Mail writer Ian Brown and Jean Vanier
(...) I was part of the war, the heroism of fighting, marching with fixed bayonets behind military bans. I had admired Churchill. I had watched thousands of Flying Fortresses over East Anglia on the way to bomb Germany, hoping that we would win. There was, at quite a deep level within me, an idealism of war. It was part of my makeup. But what I read about Churchill and his – dare I say – lust for war, to win at all costs, struck deep chords within me and opended me to a truth I had not wanted to look at.
"Bomb the Huns to hell?" Indiscrimate bombing of cities knowing that military targets would not be hit, but thousand of civilians would be killed? Yes, at the level of soldiers on the front line, there was great courage and heroism. But behind there were the political leaders "playing" war – a game, a horrible game. (...) There can be an attraction to war, to violence, to spilling blood. This attraction is deeply wounding, not only to those who are killed but to those who are doing the killing.
Thank you for the opportunity to reflect with you on the care of vulnerable people. Your committee has a most important task, for it is said that we will be judged as a society by how we treat our most vulnerable members. It is wise to listen to, and learn from them, even as we serve them.
For the past 46 years I have lived with people intellectual disabilities. I have listened to them and learned from them. These beautiful men and women have much to teach us about vulnerability, about caring, and about the ways of the heart. As individuals and as a population, they have a lived history of suffering, of being rejected and hidden away; away from the mainstream, away from power, away from belonging. Their obvious physical impairments, their openness of heart and their cry of need for relationship have gently invited me to reflect on my own impairments, fear of openness and need for relationship. They have been my teachers in the school of the wise and tender heart. (...)
Source: Aging and Disability.org
(Excerpts : Encounter on ABC Radio National (Australia).
Jean Vanier : You see, the worst thing that can happen for anyone is the anguish of loneliness. Nobody loves me, nobody wants me. And this can come about for many people. They throw themselves into work, but they might be terribly lonely on the part of their hearts, that which is most human within them. So human beings, they need a place where they belong, but not belonging that closes them up and a belonging of fear, but a belonging of relationship. We're together, we love each other. When we're strong and fit and capable and have lots of diplomas, maybe we feel we don't need to belong. We're capable. But as soon as somebody is a little bit weaker, a bit more fragile, then we need to belong, we need this place where we're loved as we are. So home and belonging is something very fundamental to human beings…
Source: Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog November 10,2010
Carolyn Whitney-Brown is the editor of this volume in the Modern Spiritual Masters Series on the essential writings of Jean Vanier.
"Reconciliation is a bilateral affair; it is the completion of the forgiveness process, the coming together of the oppressed and the oppressor, each one accepting the other, each acknowledging their fears and hatreds, each accepting that the path of mutual love is the only way out of a world of conflict."
Source: Modern Spiritual Masters Series
I am proud to have received the Order of Canada. It was not just awarded to me but as a sign of the value of people with disabilities, who for too long have been pushed aside or hidden away in institutions or in their families. I am proud of the way federal and provincial governments and many private groups have fostered the growth of people with disabilities and helped them find their place through communities that welcome them with deep respect. Of course there is still a lot to be done, but we are on a road.
My hope and my prayer is that the Order of Canada will continue to be awarded to those who struggle for justice and for peace and for a culture of beauty and truth, for a Canada not closed up in fear but open to all in our families, in our land, in our churches and in different religions so that all may grow in a love which is wisdom, compassion, understanding and comprehension.
Source: Globe and Mail, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008
An extraordinary public exchange of letters between over the past six months has illuminated in a very personal way the profound issues posed by death and all that leads to it.
Ian Brown, who writes for the Globe and Mail, has a disabled son, Walker. Jean Vanier is the founder of L'Arche, a world-wide organization that provides a refuge and life-long home for intellectually disabled people. In their latest exchange of letters Brown asked Vanier, "Are you fearful of death?" Vanier replied, "No, I cannot say I am".
This letter brought to mind many issues that I struggled with in a speech I gave recently in Ottawa called, "Dying as the Last Great Act of Living". In it I explored the impact that legalizing euthanasia might have on the possibility of our experiencing death as such an act. Some of the issues I examined were our fear of mystery and uncertainty, the nature of the "human spirit", what an ethics of respect for human potentiality and its fulfillment would require in our treatment of old or dying people, and the role of hope in our lives and death.
Source: catholiceducation.org, 2009
Talbot: And you say it is often the disabled who are free and who are our teachers.
Vanier: People with disabilities are incredible because they are not caught by conventions. I remember a whole group of us went to Rome and we were to meet the Pope. Fabio, who has quite a severe handicap but can walk, sat on the throne of the Pope. He was sitting like that, quite happy, and everybody was wondering what was going to happen. But he was free! I would never have dared to go and sit on the throne of the Pope, but he had that freedom from convention because we are caught up in what will people think of us. That's not their problem. Their problem is, "Do you love me?" So they are caught up in something else, which is something which is coming from the very depths of their being. They call people to trust, and they themselves trust, and they are calling us all into a relationship of mutuality.
Source: 30 good minutes online
Three of your recent books have been on the Globe and Mail bestseller list—Becoming Human, for many months. What attracts people to your writing?
Jean Vanier: People want to know what it is to be human, because they sense that society is less human and they are not quite sure what is missing, so the title Becoming Human attracts them. A second factor is that people are more and more lonely. The wisdom of L'Arche is that every person has a gift or a message, but that people need to belong in order to give their gift. Belonging is important to people but it can also be a little frightening. And thirdly, many people are searching for spirituality, and my books are about spirituality. (...)
Source: Canadian Christian Community Online, 2006
There are seven aspects of love that seem necessary for the transformation of the heart that is profoundly alone. They are: to reveal, to understand, to communicate, to celebrate, to empower, to be in communication with another, and to forgive. (...)
Source: Truth-Seeker
ON COMMUNITY by Jean Vanier
Community is the place where we ideally learn to be ourselves without fear or constraint. Community life deepens through mutual trust among all its members. The more authentic and creative a community is in its search for the essential, the more its members are called beyond their own concerns and tend to unite. A community becomes truly and radiantly one when all its members have a sense of urgency. The process of becoming a community happens when the majority of its members make the transition from ‘the community for myself’ to ‘myself for the community. (...)
Source: iamgodeicommunity.ca
L'Arche
