The Power of one

The other day I had a lovely visit with two friends from l'Arche. I always enjoy these visits because there is lots to share and lots of news to learn. We each have a special association with the l'Arche community in Greater Vancouver and so, getting together is a wonderful occasion for remembering the people we have lived with and loved.

L'Arche is there as a community which includes at its core, men and women who seem to be intellectually challenged in some way and who live with others who come to assist them but who, in the end, gain more than they give. When we have these reminisencing sessions it is always the core people we talk about because, I believe, it is they more than the others, who have touched our lives and helped transform them. When I think of this I am startled to think that these are people whom we as a society have written off (and that is not too strong a phrase).

I wanted to write about this because it occurs to me more and more that we, as human beings, often question ourselves and what we do or don't do by saying something like, 'what is the point of my doing this or that, I am only one person and nobody will care. What I do won't make any difference'. And yet, as I thought about the conversations I have had with my friends about our companions in l'Arche it occurred to me that this is never true.


One of the people we were talking about was our friend Geraldine. This woman was, yes, in some sense intellectually less agile than some but you could only admire her sense of herself: she knew what she wanted (or didn't - and this was always clear) and she had an amazing capacity to sit, to observe, to supervise and sometimes, to choose to do as little as possible. This is not a criticism because you recognized an art form when you saw it. Geraldine had managed to live quite a long life by choosing a way of getting the most with the least effort. That in some ways is a gift many people long for. She had a wonderful sense of humor, a beautifully unique laugh and she touched each life around her by her almost majestic presence there on the couch. She was one of the most interesting people I have ever known.


Someone else I always remember with love is Iris. Iris was very different from Geraldine. She was quite able in many ways and perhaps if her parents had not been told she was 'retarded' she would have married and lived a relatively normal life. In any case, she struggled lovingly, to be all that she could be. She was kind and considerate. But one of the things I remember most about her was something she taught me. Iris had come to spend some time with us in order to see if she would like to move to l'Arche, and so towards the end of her stay I said, 'Iris, have you made any decision about whether you would like to come and live here?'. She looked at me sadly and said, 'Well, I don't know. No one has ever taught me how to make a decision. I have never had to make one before.' Wow! That was an education for me. But it was also a glimpse into the heart of someone who was rich in humanity and who had suffered because no one had had faith in what she could learn to do.

My point in sharing this very tiny bit about these two wonderful women is that they profoundly affected me. Their presence and friendship enriched my life. Two (but of course there were many other unique, very special individuals as well but this is not a book) individual women whom society had judged to be 'handicapped' 'retarded' were two of the most interesting and human people I have ever known. Each one was a gift. Each one made a contribution to the world around them. They might have said ' what is the point of my living, what is the point of my trying, I am someone of no account'. But life proved differently. They touched not only my life, but many others as well. And all of us who were changed by knowing them have somehow passed that gift on to others. And so it spreads.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that hardly any of us are what the world calls 'big players'. But what we are, every one of us, is beautifully unique and precious individuals who touch the lives of many people in a lifetime and so, one does matter because it is like the ripples in the water- our little life touches another who touches another and on it goes. So wouldn't it be wonderful to see that as an incentive to be the best and most loving people we can be.









 
 

A root for community and compassion

We were at a bible study group this morning looking at the readings that will be used in some churches on Sunday. One of the readings is from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians and among other things it says, basically, ' you have a responsibility to and for one another'. He suggests for instance, that even when we may have a right to do something, we may have a responsibility not to do it if it will harm or scandalize others. At very least, I think he is suggesting that we think about the implications of what we say or do before we act, out of respect for our brothers and sisters.

This took my mind to something that I have noticed since I have come back to Canada from my life in the monastery. That is, it seems to me that our civic and political life is becoming so confrontational that there is less and less will to compromise or listen or love. So for instance, I am certain I am right, you do not agree with me, therefore you are wrong and I will destroy you. Or, at very least,  I will shout you down when you try to speak, I will cast all sorts of doubts on your truthfulness, I will be certain that you don't 'win'. Because if you win then I must lose. That is certainly evident in American politics just now but it may be increasingly true here too. 

But it is not just in political life that this happens. I hear  more and more often  people speaking about entitlement for instance. 'I am entitled to...' and follows a whole list of perks. With that goes the sense that if I don't fight for myself and my rights, no one else will and if I fight for mine I can't fight for yours. In feeling that way, may we not be losing sight of that humanity that Paul speaks of?

If we only think in terms of 'us' and 'them', if our neighbor becomes somehow an enemy, what chance do we have to become full, loving, whole human beings and a society of care? If we look around us at the people we admire I should imagine that they are people who are in fact, the opposite of those of whom I have been speaking. They will be people who are caring, self-less, truth-full people. I should imagine that we admire their courage in doing the loving thing. How will our world be one in which future generations can live in peace if we go on building a society and a polity that cannot live compassionately?

Karen Armstrong and others have have taken up the 'cause' for compassion with the Charter for Compassion. The purpose of the Charter states that it 'is a document that transcends religious, ideological and national differences...The Charter activates the Golden Rule around the world'. The Golden Rule states, in one of its forms ' do not do to others what you would not want done to you'. What a way to begin!
It is worth looking at their website to read it. www.charterforcompassion.org

Heroes and miracles

For a short while the other night I was watching the Golden Globe Awards. I suspect there were an awful lot of other people doing the same thing. I finally got bored and turned it off.

Afterwards I thought about what it was I didn't much like about it all (apart from the rather adolescent humor of the host - if that isn't insulting adolescents). There were all those 'glamorous' men and women dressed in hugely expensive and often rather odd, outfits - celebrities we call them. It isn't that some of them are not wonderfully talented creative artists because many certainly are, but there are an equal number who are celebrities simply because they are physically beautiful or know somehow, how to gain attention.

I am often saddened by our focus on celebrity in our society. It is fairly easy to become one and just as easy to fade quickly from sight after a moment's stardom. Why do celebrities play such a part in our lives? It is almost as if we admire people and set them upon a pedestal simply because they are: powerful, rich, beautiful, or odd. We need heroes and because we don't see others we choose them. We seem often not to care how they have become powerful or rich which is also sad I think. Someone recently said that she found it hard to understand the people  her son admired - mostly very rich young men who can put a basketball through a hoop or hit a home run.

I wonder if the focus on celebrity says that we don't think much of ourselves or the people we know in our own circle of friends or associates. Do we think of ourselves as too ordinary and uninteresting and do we long to escape into the world of others whose life seems more exciting?

But you know what? Each of us and each of the people we know are pretty special. We should cherish that. The values that matter most, like courage and integrity and selflessness and kindness and deep beauty are to be found, if we look, all around us in our own circle of family and friends. All around us are people who give their lives as caregivers of elderly parents or of children or as good neighbor friends. I am almost certain most of us know someone or several someones who courageously live difficult lives of ill health, or handicap or poverty or loneliness. We know others who we can count on for help when we need it or truth when we ask for it or compassion in the face of our own weakness.  In each one of us, God lives out a life of love in weakness. If that isn't celebrity I don't know what is.

A man named Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us of what is all around our ordinary lives each day. He says: Around us, life bursts forth with miracles - a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings....

Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Maybe then, if we watch out for these miracles in our daily, ordinary life and our daily, ordinary friends and family we won't have to yield to the celebrity culture so much for we will know our nearest and dearest as our real heroes.

Personal space

I have spoken before about my view of the streetcar stop across the street from the window where I often sit and pray. One day I suddenly noticed how the people waiting there were standing. It was almost as if someone had taken a tape measure and said to each one 'you stand here', then measured off another space and so on. There was virtually the same space between each person - roughly I would guess, about 5 feet. As more folks came there was a certain amount of shuffling done and though the space might get reduced there still tended to be an equal space between each one. Once I noticed this I began to see it every day and it was then I realized that it was probably an unconscious expression of the important need we human beings have for personal space.

It is true, isn't it, that most of us are very conscious when someone invades our personal space? We move back or away when someone we do not know comes too close. I suppose it derives from our animal nature - a kind of self protection. But I sense that for us it is valuable both as a physical and an emotional boundary. You see when there are couples or people who are clearly friends that the distance is much less and indeed, sometimes almost non-existent. We have to choose to let people close; we have to choose who we will be intimate with and possibly we both fear and resent someone who does not respect that. 


But that then led me to think about the many, many lonely people in our current society. So many are separated from family and roots that in previous times held people close (sometimes perhaps, too close?). Is the huge amount of recreational sex that has become such a part of the life of many a sign of this loneliness? Is that why we admit into the most intimate personal space we know, someone who is essentially a perfect stranger - someone we pick up at a party for instance? It seems likely to be a basically unsatisfying form of intimacy so why do we do it?  Perhaps it is that we are looking for someone who will say to us 'you matter', 'you are loved', you don't need to be lonely anymore.


But really, what can I or we do about it? This is a huge problem of an anonymous urban world that isolates people or casts them aside. I don't know for sure but what I think  I can think to do is to try to reach out a little more to the people around me who may need a word of love or encouragement because even the folks we know well can be feeling isolated or lonely or unheard. I am sure there is more to do as well and that I suspect, will present itself each day - waiting for my response.

This is a rather long reflection coming simply from observing folks standing at a streetcar stop waiting. But then, why not ponder and see where it goes?

More ponderings about funerals and stories

A friend of mine thinks that writing about funerals is morbid. Blogs should be light-hearted he said. Well, it seems to me that funerals are about life and how we live it  and that is what I want to write about; the journey of life. So, today some more thoughts arising from the funeral I attended last week.

Aren't funerals very much about telling a story? It will be the story of one woman or man's life, her or his relationship to family, friends, colleagues and, from my point of view, God. I hadn't thought about this before; I hadn't really appreciated that until last week but then, it made perfect sense. We begin the story of our life with a not quite clean page (because we have in our genes a family history) but as we experience life more pages are written and are filled with the choices we make, the experiences that come to us, the relationships formed by us, the cultural and economic climate of our time and of course, many more things. All these are part of who we become and are when we die. At our funeral someone or a number of someone's tell the part of the story they know. And perhaps for the first time, people who knew only part of the story have a much fuller sense of the whole.


But then I wondered about the many people who have no one to relate their story, or people whose story is unknown? There are the street people, the lost children, the lonely and abandoned old, the mentally distressed who have lost all contact. Who knows their stories? Perhaps no one any more. I find that tremendously sad. Every single human being has a story, a story that makes their lives precious and unique and it is sad if that story cannot be told at their funeral at least.


In l'Arche communities where there are many folks who are said to have intellectual disabilities and who have in some way been deprived of the value of their story by society at large, there are the most wonderful funerals, the most touching celebration of a life lived often under extremely difficult circumstances. There is joyful music, there is a recognition of amazing humanity, and most of all, a sharing of memories and stories. It is healing for those present, it is healing for our world I feel.


All this reflection reminds me that we have to think about the stories before it is too late. What do we really know about the people closest to us? What do they know about us? How often do we ask people to share their story so that we can know them more deeply? Wouldn't it be good now, while we and they are still alive, to begin to story-tell? I am going to try to do that more often starting today.

A funeral and wholeness

This morning I went to a funeral. It was not a sad funeral because I  think that most of the people there would be grateful that the man was now relieved of his suffering. I do not know how old he was but he was not young - maybe in his 70's. As I was listening to the story of his life given by his friends and colleagues and family, a new realization came to my mind.

The thought had to do with how we are known in life. There were a number of young people at the funeral and they can only have known this man as an old and quite emotionally and physically frail person. Others there would have known him from middle-age on and a few, particularly his colleagues would have known him since he was a young man setting out on the adventure of his life. His family only, I suspect, knew him from childhood - from the beginning.

So, what struck me was, where or who is the whole person? Who, in our lives sees us all the way through? Unless we die young, there are very few who have journeyed all the way with us. The young people there will remember only an old man - was that the whole man? The family will recall much more but they were not there when the colleagues were. It seems then that each of us is in some ways known only in the pieces of our lives. Who knows the depths of us, who knows the inner us? For me, as I listened to the funeral service, I was grateful that I believe in a God who has journeyed all the way with us and who, alone, knows the whole us. 

We do long for human depth of knowing too, but possibly it is a rare thing and can, I think, never be as comprehensive as our God's knowing. In our world right now, because the awareness of God is not part of the lives of so many, there seems to be an often profoundly sad search for that perfect human relationship that will fill the void in our hearts and bring the pieces together. Is that why there is so much casual sex? is that what material things are meant to answer? Do they satisfy? I believe not. But a funeral is a special time to look at someone's life and to some extent, put the pieces together for everyone to see and hear. Maybe that is one of its best gifts.