It’s great to see Jean Vanier and the L’Arch communities getting so much attention in the blogs lately. Notable is Jonathan Wils0n-Hartgrove’s interview of Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas on their recent book, Living Gently in a Violent World, in the April edition of Sojourners.
Wilson-Hartgrove: You write in Living Gently in a Violent World about the gap between the so-called “normal” world and the world of people who have been unjustly pushed to the margins. How can responding to that gap draw people into community?
Vanier: It’s easier to say why the gap exists. The gap is created by fear. The gap is what pushes us to create bigger gaps. You feel lost in front of the one who is different because you don’t know his language, you don’t know how to respond, you don’t know if you’ll be accepted. Many people reject people with disabilities because they just don’t know what to do. Myths are created—the disabled are dangerous or sexually perverse. So there is fear.
But what breaks down the fear? That is the big question: What creates transformation? We meet someone. St. Francis said he always held lepers in repulsion. Then one day the Lord led him to the lepers. He said, “When I left them I had a new gentleness in my body and in my spirit. From then on, I wanted to follow the Lord.” When you meet the leper and you listen to him, you realize that he’s just a human being. From very deep inside of one, there arises a compassion for life.
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Wilson-Hartgrove: Stanley, you write that L’Arche is not a solution but a sign. When so many people want solutions, why do we need signs?
Hauerwas: Because we’re Christians. Christianity is fundamentally a sign that enables you to live when you know no solution. Solutions will always kill people. So we need signs that are witnesses to help us know we’re not abandoned. That’s a politics. It challenges the politics of power which says, “I need to do a violent act now in order to achieve peace in the future.” There is no peace in the future through violence.
[...] H/T: Adam McInturf [...]