Now I want to talk about l'Arche - or at least something of my own personal experience of it . If you don't know about l'Arche here are some links:http://www.larche.org/home.en; http://www.larche.ca/, http://www.larchevancouver.org/.
In 1973 I went to live at the first l'Arche community in Canada- Daybreak in Richmond Hill just north of Toronto. There I met some truly wonderful and interesting men and women many of whom were in some sense, people who had been cast aside by our society. After a year at Daybreak - living and working together with my new friends pretty much 24/7 - I went with Peggy to open a new community in Burnaby B. C. We had been offered a very big but most welcome house, by the United Church of Canada. It had at one time been a home for unwed mothers but was no longer needed (that I guess is another issue) and was offered to us for $1 a year, furnished and with food still in the larder!
Starting almost as soon as we arrived in 1974 we went out to what was then one of the largest institutions for people with intellectual disabilities. There were many, many women and men who had been there for long years, housed in crowded facilities with almost nothing to do but sit and rock back and forth. This was common in those days in part because these were people who were pretty much at the bottom of the list of caring. In the end, we met a number of people who would, I think, have liked to come to our new community but we were only able to take two at that time: Ken and his friend Rick.
Both of these men had what is usually called Down Syndrome. The staff had told us that Ken would likely not live for more than a year because of a heart condition but we decided that whatever his future, we would ask him to come if he wished. He was interesting, had lots to say and would be a good foundation member. (He is still alive in 2011!). Rick was a man of few words - none really. In all the years I have known him, he has never said a word but in spite of that, there is almost never any doubt about what he is saying with all the other ways he has of communicating. So these two men plus Bill who had been living with his brother, Geraldine who had been living at home and Iris who had been living in a group home were the founding members. Many more followed but these were the ones upon whom the community was built.
In my earlier post I spoke about the kind of life experience living in community is on forming each person. That was just as true of l'Arche as of a Carmelite community. We were with each other living as a family - the core members like Ken and Rick and some assistants who came to join and to share the life. We lived through a great many growth pains, both personal and communal. We grew together, we struggled together, we fought together. But we also celebrated together, prayed together and played together. It was, I believe, a grace-filled life together, a place of welcome and a small light in an often dark world.
When I left to go to the monastery I left with great sadness. Most of my friends could not understand why I went or what I was going to. And yet, over the 30 years I was away I often heard from Ken especially, because it was almost as if he had a vocation to keep in touch with all those who had come and gone over the years. I would receive a letter (thank God for a post office which was prepared to do a bit of deciphering) which might say no more than: 'Dear Judie, I am fine how are you? I miss you! Come back to Canada. Love from your friend Ken'. He would sometimes give me a bit of news about others whom he knew I would want to hear about.
When I returned and was able to visit them all in 2009 I was so touched by the welcome I received. It filled my heart with gratitude. But added to that was what I saw as a real growth in maturity and responsibility of the core members - the men and women who had come from institutions and homes and, not to forget as well, loving homes. Over the years many assistants had come and gone and it was the core members who were the steady heart of the community. And in that particular community, it was Ken who had become the holder of the community's memory of the past. It was Ken who had kept all the people who had come and gone in his thoughts and who was the wise and stable man at the heart of it all.
This is not to deny at all the contribution of all the other men and women who form the heart of the community. There are some of the most interesting people I have ever met there; unique and wonderful. Nor is it to deny that we are talking about flesh and blood human beings, so we are also speaking of suffering, anger, woundedness of spirit - just as you would find anywhere. But here were people whom we had discarded as useless who have turned out to be a richness of humanity it is impossible to value.
No comments:
Post a Comment