Starting Classes: Everyone is my Teacher

Advice that I have been given by multiple people now is to take L’Arche in and feel it out. That is more important now than being assigned chores and learning how documentation and administration work in L’Arche. So I’m basically being advised to ease up on my vacuum cleaner tendency to suck up tangible info goodies and instead soak in the culture, the feel, the relationships of L’Arche. I find this challenging because there’s the side of me that likes to believe that I have read Vanier’s stuff and studied L’Arche materials enough to understand all I need to understand to be a founding assistant. I intend to follow the advice because it will mean learning a new kind of patience that asks for easing up on my mind rather than my body.

Eric is an assistant here at L’Arche Harbor House, and I want to give him credit for provoking most of the ideas I write about here. There were conversations with David Keel, Sarah Thullberry, and others that contributed as well. Thanks.

There are basically a couple concepts out in the sea and I am attempting to catch all of them and eat them (though I’ve been doing the vegetarian thing for over 6 weeks now I think!). The first is Ken Wilber’s integral operating system, or OIS. Integral philosophy is an attempt at constructing a schema that includes everything! I believe thus far that it does an excellent job of encapsulating all philosophies of which people subscribe. Let me break it down quickly: there are four quadrants that are all relevant to an integral vision. One quadrant focuses on a person’s emotion/perceptions/sensations/spirituality, the second focuses on the biological/scientific side of quadrant one. The third quadrant looks at relationships, and the fourth is a more macro view of that quadrant, i.e. sociology, anthropology, etc. A person like Richard Dawkins, for example, stays focused in quadrant 2 when it comes to his views on theology, and so many like myself find it frustrating that he does not give proper credence to what comes of personal experience and relationship. It’s not that Dawkins is wrong, even. It’s just limited in its scope. So anyway, I am from hereon going to be running this broad philosophy through my mental gauntlet.

The second concept is a branching out of how people like you and I bring value to the world. I have been describing it as value that goes beyond our abilities and disabilities into the realm of symbols and representation. For example, Manuel from the last entry lives with certain slowness. His is a slowness that demands the encouragement of others to achieve the necessities of sustainable daily living. For many, I can imagine this would get cumbersome fast. Manuel has the abilities to make others laugh and help out with some chores. He has disabilities caused by Down syndrome, and slowness could be added to this list. But it is our wounds that alternately serve as gifts, as teachers even, of what humans can learn. So Manuel is a teacher of slowness, he goes so far as to represent the importance of slowness to me.

Manuel questions my need to be efficient in my actions. Boom! Someone like me finds efficiency in most situations so important that it often paralyzes me. If I cannot think of an efficient way to save gas as I drive from place to place fulfilling errands, I build up my anxiety and never leave the house! Yet Manuel here pauses multiple times as he walks from the van drop-off back to us in Peace House. Wow. The snack he loves to gobble up and potential tickle-inducing belly laughs are waiting for him just a few steps away, but he stands there and takes life in at that moment. Is “efficient” the best way if I cannot seem to enjoy the journey to the places I most desire to be? And I thought you needed a school and a classroom to be a teacher. That’s why I love the notion that L’Arche is a school, the houses are classrooms, and the core members are teachers.

Another example of our symbolism is a child and their smile. The value of an innocent child is not that they are able to clean the house, mow the lawn, and bring revenue into a household. When I walk by a small child playing happily with toys, I do not think about how the kid is dependent on hand outs from his/her parents. We are all dependent on others in various ways at every point in our lives. I accept the joy of the world as I take in that child’s smile and laughter. (To the parent, the child may be a terror all the time, but) for me that child is a symbol of beauty and innocence in the world. It is easy for many people to develop skeptical views of the world. I hope that each of us can recognize the value of a smile.

I could apply other examples, but I think that if we think on it, we become aware of the dual nature of our abilities and disabilities. They are one in the same. It is from wounds we develop abilities. Take my tendency to remain an objective observer. Though this is often an impediment in being in relationship, it is a gift when it comes to developing productive recommendations for an organization for which I am a member.


Some lessons from homework…

• Fellow assistant Thomas taught me the basic tips of speed reading. So much of it is understanding the context of the book. What is the basic message of the book? What do we know of the author? Reading the introduction and knowing the framework of a book seems more important than the actual fast paced reading (which is done by underlining book lines with your fingers and leading your eyes quickly).
• I made my first dinner, but it was for only 4 people. Potato curry (I know to use coconut milk next time…and scrambled eggs with veggies tossed in)
• My first JAX Trivia Night happened and we took 2nd place!
• One of the core members I live with sang and played her bongo drum for me and I found it surprisingly adorable and energetic.
• I voted absentee and used it primarily to promote third parties
• Halloween happened last night. Peace House won the best costume award for our Wizard of Oz theme (I was the ninja of Oz…yes). I engaged in multiple swordfights and dance numbers. Special thanks to the hosts and band.
• At the beach, I learned some great games, one of which is called sandball, and I highly recommend it. Two or more people build solid round sandballs and see which one is more solid by rolling them down a small hill into each other. Do this multiple times until someone’s ball breaks significantly. The ball standing is the winner. To make a solid heavy ball of sand, use wet sand as the center and surround it with dry sand, much like preparing the bread for pizza.

And now, some wisdom from Jean Vanier’s “Becoming Human.”

“When we refuse to accept that loneliness and insecurity are part of life, when we refuse to accept that they are the price of change, we close the door on many possibilities for ourselves; our lives become lessened, we are less than fully human.”

“I believe that every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood.”

“To name something is to bring it out of chaos, out of confusion, and to render it understandable.”