I read and
did notes on Vanier’s book Becoming
Human,
the written form of his 2008
Massey Lectures, because the
church choir I
sing in was going to a July 2016
retreat at L’Arche headquarters in
Trosly-Breuil north
of Paris, France. My wife Pat and
I went on the trip which combined
tourism, the retreat
and some singing in L’Eglise de la
Madeleine and two cathedrals near
Paris. So I summarize some
thoughts of Vanier’s book here.
Vanier left
the Royal Navy in 1950. He went to
a Christian community near Paris
where he
was introduced to the way the
seriously disabled were treated.
He bought a
little house and shared it with
two severely disabled men. L’Arche
was born.
The life together made him more
human – accepting that all humans
have weaknesses
and strengths and needs and gifts.
Vanier writes of liberating
ourselves from
loneliness and from fears that
exclude others. Discovery of a
common humanity liberates
us from self-centred compulsions
and inner hurts. The discovery is
fulfilled in
forgiveness and loving our
enemies, topics he explores at the
end of the book.
His first chapter
on loneliness says loneliness can
be terrible. Although a form of it
can drive
artists, poets, prophets and
mystics to seek change, loneliness
for the old and
disabled can become apathy and
despair. Vanier visited a
psychiatric hospital –
a warehouse with the silence of
utter despair. Those in this chaos
cannot
relate or listen to others; they
live in confusion, closed up in
themselves.
They can slip into madness.
Healing comes from a sense of
belonging and being
loved - relationships.
Being human
means having enough order to move
into insecurity and seeming
disorder.
Everyone needs to become what they
can become. But the past must be
allowed to
flow into the present so values of
the past continue – openness,
love, unity,
peace, healing and forgiveness.
Humans need encouragement to make
choices and become
responsible for their lives and
the lives of others. Being human
is being
connected to our humanness – as we
are – and others – as they are –
and
reality. There can be community
with a rigid order that provides
security but
that stifles individual
initiative. The connectedness and
security we need must
not block the evolution we also
need.
His second chapter
is on Belonging. It is important
for our growth to independence,
inner freedom
and maturity. People feel the need
to belong to a group for
protection, to
affirm identity, prove worthiness
and maybe show that they are
better than
others. But groups can use
religion or culture to dominate
one another. Our
lives are a mystery of weakness as
a child, to weakness when aged.
Weakness can
bring chaos if we are not wanted,
but can bring peace if we are
accepted and
appreciated. To deny weakness and
the ultimate powerlessness of
death is to
deny a part of ourselves.
Belonging is beautiful but
terrible. A relationship
brings times of bliss, the joy of
moving from loneliness to
togetherness and of
giving and receiving. But there is
also a shadow side when belonging
can crush
freedom. We discover humanity
through mutual dependency, in
weakness, in
learning, through belonging.
A society should be
inclusive of the needs and gifts
of all its members
but the weak have a hard time in
our society. Those we exclude can
have profound
lessons to teach. Society is
geared to a particular evolution.
At a certain
stage families encourage children
to leave home, marry, have kids
and move
on.The disabled have no such
future.
Society is not set up to deal with
people who are slower and weaker.
The world has
a history of one group proving its
strength over another – we feel
that others
should follow our example or serve
us; or that in order to bring
peace we must
impose our views on the rest. We
cannot see fault in our group.
Differences
must be suppressed. Savages must
be civilized. It is difficult to
move from
believing in the value of our
culture, to finding value in
others.
Beyond just belonging
is the individual obligation to
question the certainties of the
group. In many parts of the world
the family and the tribe feel
bonded and
members sacrifice their individual
freedom on the altar of security
and unity.
How can our survival
of the fittest society can be
better balanced? Perhaps it
is by redefining how individuals
fit somewhere other than the
centre of a group
and by finding how the groups can
fit together without destructive
competition.
There can be a need for closed
groups sometimes, but groups
that insist more on belonging than
on individual growth to inner
freedom of
members and service to others are
problematic.
Society is
where we learn, develop our
potential and work for justice,
peace and the
service of others. Belonging is
where we find personal security
and respect for
one another. We work together, we
cooperate, we listen, we resolve
conflicts.
Those with less conventional
knowledge are respected and
listened to. First, we
become open to the weak and needy
which helps us to open up to
others in
healthy belonging. Second, the way
we open matters. It is not for
self-aggrandizement,
but it listens and empowers others
to make their own decisions. Third
we move
from behind walls of certainty and
seek other like-minded groups.
Finally, we
recognize group flaws and we draw
on others outside the group for
help that we
recognize our group needs. Finally
we must break into a wider
belonging in a
pluralistic society alongside
other groups and cultures.
His chapter 4
is about exclusion and inclusion.It begins
with the tale of the divide
between rich and poor – Dives and
Lazarus - a deep
divide. A beggar needs far more
than a coin and we are afraid of
being
swallowed up in the extent of the
pain and need. Among the many
excluded groups,
people with intellectual
disabilities are particularly
oppressed and excluded.
We exclude
because are frightened of losing
what is important to us. Fear
prevents us from
being human – from growing and
changing. And fear always demands
an object. There
is fear of dissidents who threaten
the order. There is fear of
difference: the
poor or the stranger different in
culture or religion. There is fear
of those with
intellectual disabilities. Fear of
failure develops a need for
success and a
need to please. Yet not everyone
can succeed. Then there is the
helplessness of
facing people with intellectual
disabilities and how to relate or
communicate
with them. This is the fear of
failure and of not coping with a
situation. There
is also a fear of loss or change
by the rich and powerful like you
and I. We
are frightened of the ugly and the
dirty.
As we become
aware of our uniqueness and the
uniqueness of others we become
aware of our
common humanity. Moving from
exclusion to inclusion isn’t about
making other people
become like us – going to movies
and swimming in the local pool.
They have a
gift to give. It is by our being
open and vulnerable and being
friends that
they will change us.
The way of
the heart is a world of simple
relationships and fun because
people with
disabilities do not delight in
abstract intellectual
conversation. At times
there needs to be talk of serious
life issues like death, sexuality
and
justice. They need times of work
to see what they can do. Sharing
weaknesses
and needs builds a oneness that
cannot be built by sharing
cleverness and
skills. We are afraid to go
against the norm. Things past and
previous
consequences restrain us. People
with disabilities are often not
people of past
or future but of the present.
Justice means
more than following the law and
not hurting people. Justice means
respecting
and valuing each individual. When
we enter relationship with those
different or
on the fringes, we can look more
critically at our own culture.
Befriending an
excluded person is an act of self
imposed exile from most of the
world. Yet as
we open up to the weak we become
more human.
Simplicity,
tenderness is the language of the
body – the mother holding the
child, the
nurse bathing the wound, the
sister serving food and tea. Isn’t
this the way we
should relate to every living
thing? Vanier confesses that while
some called
forth tenderness from him, others
caused anger or frustration. One
learns one’s
limits in a world of intense
relationships – and one has to
accept these too.
Vanier talks
of the road to compassion
beginning with his own meeting
Father Thomas
Philippe in 1950. “To have an open
heart that lets the waters of
compassion, of understanding and
forgiveness, flow forth is a sign
of a mature
person.” Maybe we will encounter
such a person who will reveal to
us the reason we were born, and
then we will walk towards greater
freedom
and let waters flow on others. He
quotes Buddhist Aung San Suu Kyi
who says
barriers of race and religion fall
when people work together on
common endeavors
based on love and compassion. He
adds: “In order to stand by the
downtrodden we
need to be freed from our
compulsive need to succeed, to
have power and
approbation.”
Chapter 5 is
called The Path to Freedom. Vanier
retells the story of rich Dives
and poor Lazarus
to reinforce the gulf between the
two. Exclusion is something we do
instinctively,
just as friendship is something we
sense. The instincts mean we are
not free
and we understand these forces
imperfectly. Vanier suggests that
what makes us
feel good varies from person to
person. To be a success is to be
good at
something plus to be recognized.
To be free is to put justice truth
and service
to others above our needs for
recognition and success. People
have refused
material prosperity to live a life
of service. Yet the doer of good
deeds can
have mixed motivations – a need
for approval or a need to exercise
power.
To be free,
we have to give more to truth and
justice than to our own needs. But
then we have
our own needs too. Some go on
living a life of doing without
taking care of
themselves and they burn out.
“When we help other people isn’t
it so that they
become free, no longer dependent
on us?”
When our own needs
are not met, a void is felt as
anguish. We have compulsive needs
and they can
make others seem a threat. We
either think we’re wonderful or
horrible – seldom
getting a mature acceptance of
ourselves with our flaws. We set
out on the road
to freedom when we no longer let
our compulsions or passions govern
us. We are
freed when we put justice and the
service to others above our own
needs and
fears.
Vanier asks
what is this freedom. To be free
is to know who we are with the
good and the
bad of it; to have an anchoring
vision that is open to others and
change.
Freedom comes from discovering
that truth is a mystery to be
explored. Freedom
is to accept that no group we
belong to is perfect. “We are all
part of
something greater than ourselves.”
Freedom is for love and compassion
to give
our lives more fully and freely to
others. It is the freedom to be
kind and
patient. One is not free if one
takes away someone else’s freedom
and one is
not free just because one casts
off one’s chains, unless one lives
in a way
that respects and enhances the
freedom of others.
Freedom is
also acceptance of the world as it
is plus the will to struggle to
make it a
better place for us all. To be
free is to see new truths emerging
in the chaos,
to see the Spirit of God hovering
over the chaos. Others have
written about
steps to freedom. The Buddhist has
“heavenly abodes.” The first is
loving
kindness in serving, the second is
compassion to suffering of others,
the third
is sympathetic joy when the poor
and oppressed rise up in freedom,
the fourth is
peace of heart. Christian
spiritual writers put first the
struggle against
greed, pleasure, selfishness and
self-centredness. A step is to
look for wisdom
from unexpected events - the death
of a friend, a sickness or an
accident. Another
step is accompaniment –
non-judgmental being there. And
another step is using
role models: Ghandi, the Dalai
Lama, Mother Teresa – people who
have struggled
to make our world more
inhabitable. A sixth step is to
know that the road to
freedom is a struggle to inner
growth, truth, justice and the
service of
others.
The last
chapter, 6, is about forgiveness -
releasing from hurts that govern
behavior, create
barriers and make us act
inhumanely. Hurts can drive us to
hurt those who hurt
us or they can create guilt –
shame. He reminds us of the
transforming love of
his first chapter when people meet
and open to each other. To
“for-give” is to
offer this love.It may be accepted or
not.
Vanier
explores different kinds of hurts.
Sometimes there are “blockages” in
the
person who has done the hurting so
they cannot recognize guilt. And
sometimes
asking God to forgive can release
the hurt person from the bondage
of hating of
the hurter. Likes and dislikes can
be strong and create a form of
bondage. Then
there are the hatreds communities
have for each other. Forgiveness
is
unilateral, beginning with a step
like not seeking revenge.
Vanier says “love
your enemies” is at the heart of
the Christian message and it was a
tough
message to Galileans who had faced
reprisals for a revolt against
Rome. Loving
what we dislike seems impossible,
but at some point in our lives
there can be
an event that calls us to freedom
and openness. It can happen
through
encounters with others who have
begun to follow the call. Vanier
offers some
principles. The first is that
there can be no forgiveness unless
we believe we
are all part of a common humanity.
The second principle is to believe
that
transformation can happen. And the
third is to want unity and peace.
“It is not
easy to accept forgiveness or to
forgive.”
At the heart
of forgiveness is the desire to be
liberated from negative passions
and he
suggests five steps. First, say no
to revenge. Second, hope that the
oppressor
can be liberated. Third, desire to
understand the oppressor to see
how they
might be liberated. Fourth, seek
awareness of one’s own dark
places. Fifth,
have patience.
Vanier
explores changing the heart of
oppressors. Reconciliation is
bilateral and
oppressors find admitting guilt
difficult. Leaders must be
unwavering to
inspire confidence. Few exercise
authority in a loving freeing
manner. Leaders
tend to forget the wrongs they
have done and leadership makes it
difficult to
face a victim, confess guilt and
ask for forgiveness. Vanier
suggests that a
force beyond oppressor and
oppressed that he calls “The
Gentle Power of God”
might be needed. Vanier ends with
thoughts around “We Work and God
Works.”
Forgiveness, a change of heart, is
not sudden. Vanier thinks God
inspires the
process as we understand the enemy
within and the enemy without.
