The L'Arche Canada Foundation in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada with Jean Vanier's Daily Thoughts for Saturday, 15 October 2016 "Acceptance"We may find the strength to discover our own wound and solitude, our cry of distress. Community can never comfort this distress; it is inherent in the human condition. But community can help us to accept it, and remind us that God responds to our cry and that we are never entirely alone. To live in community is to learn to walk alone in the desert, at night and in tears.[Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, page 195]
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 JEAN VANIER'S Daily thought>> Image from: Portraits - L'Arche Greater Vancouver (Juan Olaechea) "The Gift of Dignity" We can give people the gift of their dignity. We can help others just by the way we listen to them and speak with them. We can show them by our own trust that what they have to say is important and good. Community is caring for people, but of course as soon as we start caring for people, we know that there are some people who will just drive us up the wall. Some we will really like, because they think like us. Then we risk falling into a world of mutual flattery. We are all so much in need of affection that when somebody gives it to us we want to hold onto it. ...But flattery doesn't help anyone to grow. It doesn't bring freedom but rather closes people up in themselves. We are attracted to certain people, and others put us off. We don't get on well with them. They trigger off our anguish....Some people threaten us, others flatter us. Some meetings are joyful, and others are painful. When we begin talking about caring for people, then we begin to see how difficult it can be. In community we are called to care for each member of the community. We can choose our friends but we do not choose our brothers and sisters; they are given to us whether in family or in community.[Jean Vanier, From Brokeness to Community, pages 37-38] ------- |
JEAN VANIER'S Daily thought>> Image from: L'Arche Haïti (Éric Bellefeuille)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer[1] says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal. We are not striving for perfect community. Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.[Jean Vanier, From Brokeness to Community, pages 35-36]
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German theologian, pastor, preacher, radio broadcaster, and prolific writer in the 1930s and early-1940s.
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