University ruined my ability to read books.  Before university I could plow through any book in a week, maybe two at the most.  Now it takes me months.  Maybe its because I try to read too many different things concurrently, rather than waiting till I finish one to begin another.  Maybe its because my brain is still fried from all that info they pumped into it at school.  Who knows.

A whopping five months ago I began reading The Boy in the Moon, in which Ian Brown reflects on his relationship with his severely disabled son, Walker.   As I ponder my relationships with the core members at L’arche and my role as discover of their gifts, I reflect on these words.

“What is he trying to show me?  All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head, in his jumped-up heart. But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own” (3).

“This constant questioning, filtered through Walker – does he mean what he’s doing, or not? – was also a model, a frame on which to hang the human world, a way of living” (39).

“The light her children threw on her life, and the darkness that hovered around them and their future, went hand in hand.  One was not possible without the existence of the other.  The most difficult part to accept was how complex life was, how bleak and at the same time how rich.  [Her daughter's] mere existence was a form of remonstration, a reminder to look deeper, or at least to be alert.  Who’s to say they’re not happier in their world than I am in mine? And here I am feeling sorry for them because I’m trying to judge them by the standards of the world they aren’t part of.” (144).

“The disabled are a challenge to everyone’s established sense of order: they frighten us, if not with their faces, then with their obvious need. They call us to be more than we ever thought we would have to be” (150).

“Genetic tests are a way to eliminate the imperfect, and all the pain and agony that comes with that imperfection.  I am relieved there was no such test [when Walker was born], that I didn’t have to face the ethical dilemma it may soon present.  Because Walker is proof of what the imperfect and the fragile have to offer; a reminder that there are many ways to be human; a concentrator of joy; an insistent nudge to pay attention to every passing mote of daily life that otherwise slips by uncounted.  A test avoids all that, for better or for worse.  But if there were a more adequate system of caring for the disabled, if we were less frightened of them, if the prospect of looking after a disabled child did not threaten to destroy the lives of those doing the caring – if we had such alternatives, would we need a test at all?” (180).

“Walker’s [group] home is run by an organization that offers assisted living at a thoroughly professional level.  But how does one make a professional operation a home as well – a place full of compassion where people are forgiven endlessly?  Walker had a home where he was taken care of, but was it also a family? Would the place he was cared for feel like his home, occupied by a group of friends and measured by the collective inner life created by its residents?” (186).

Quoting Jean Vanier, “We begin in fragility, we grow up, we are fragile and strong at the same time, and then we go into the process of weakening. So the whole question of the human process is how to integrate strength and weakness. You become human by accepting your own vulnerability.  We’re in a society where we have to know what to do all the time. But if we move instead from the place of our weakness, what happens? We say to people, I need your help. And then we create community” (208).