Vanier discovered the art of being human through the disabled

Vanier found a hidden world of anguish

At the end of a steep hill in the neighbourhood where I grew up, there stood a house shrouded in mystery. Adults whispered about a “retarded” child who lived there and who was confined to a room. They argued about whether or not his parents should put him in a “home”.

I was both fascinated and afraid when I passed by the house. I had no context for the comments I overheard. I wondered about the boy, about his appearance, how he spent his day, was he lonely, and would he hurt me if he came out of the house.

That was in the mid 1960’s around the time that Jean Vanier, the 2015 Templeton Prize winner, visited an asylum, a “home”, in Trosly, France.  It was the house of my neighbourhood on a grand scale and he was as ignorant of it as were the people in my neighbourhood.  

Credit: http://templetonprize.org/images/2015/vanier-headshot.jpg

He discovered a hidden world of anguish, shame and hopelessness, a place where intellectually disabled people were shut away from sight. So, he took action, inviting two of the men who had no family to live with him. Their mutually transformative experience of living as peers - eating, doing chores and, sometimes, fighting - gradually began to attract others.

This was the humble beginning of L’Arche, a unique organization of 147 communities around the globe that fosters the mutual transformation of all its members – whether able or disabled.  Emphasizing our common humanity, L’Arche is a sign of hope for the world, demonstrating that people of different cultures, religions and  abilities can live together in peace. 

The liberating experience of L'Arche embraces vulnerability

Vanier’s experience in that first L’Arche community was liberating.  Freed from the culture of success where people are valued for their abilities and achievements, Vanier discovered what it means to be fully human.  In Vanier’s experience and thought, to be fully human means to discover that each individual is a treasured part of the human family; before being a Christian or a Jew, before being an American or a Russian, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are a person. 

When Vanier speaks of what it means to be fully human, he embraces the vulnerability that many of us try to hide. For Vanier, the story of every individual is the discovery of one’s fragility; we are born, grow and die in weakness.

Living with vulnerable people has taught him that the cry of the disabled for love is the common cry of every person. It is a cry that echoes the heart of God. When people are loved for who they are, not for what they can do, the spirit soars and they can enter more deeply into relationship. “To become fully human is to let down the barriers, to open up and to discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the jobs and responsibilities, there is you.” 

Vanier made a lasting impression in a small town

I first heard of Vanier in the 1970’s.  My late mother-in-law, who was instrumental in bringing Vanier to our diocese to give a retreat, said of him,  “He preached the gospel by the way he lived.”  He made a deep and lasting impression on her, as he did on other individuals who attended that retreat, and who, despite the passing of decades, still speak about him with great clarity.

One woman, who told me of her retreat experience, said the content of the retreat was secondary to Vanier himself. He opened up a God of love to her with his gentle manner and the love in his eyes.  Listening to Vanier, she said all these years later, “was like sitting as a child at the feet of the Master”, adding, “he could have said anything and reached me.”

Another individual described Vanier to me saying, “He is the most authentic person I have ever met. His commitment to the gospel was remarkable and he was living it beautifully.”  

Posing a tough question

The Templeton Prize, valued at approximately US $1.7 million, honors an individual who has made an extraordinary contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.  While it is clear that Vanier’s Christian faith and love of Jesus is at the basis of his lived theology, he is not pushy about creed.  When asked what he would say to a person who does not believe in God, Vanier replied, “Do you believe in love? You don’t need to believe in God. God is love. The important thing is not belief - but can you grow in love?”

That may be the tougher question.

Pastor Lee: A man with a mission

Disabled son inspires drop box for abandoned babies

Pastor Lee Jong-rak of Seoul, South Korea is a man with a mission. The documentary film The Drop Box tells his story. 

In  2009, after a mother left her baby on his doorstep one cold night, Lee created a system to safely receive abandoned babies.  He installed a drop box equipped with a bell on the side of his home. The sign above the drop box reads, “Please don’t throw away unwanted babies. Please bring them here.”   It is a message reminiscent of the words of Mother Theresa who said “…please don’t destroy the child, we will take the child”, while speaking about abortion in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since its installation, Lee and his wife, Chun-Ja, have received six hundred babies. They have either adopted or become guardians of fifteen abandoned disabled babies.

A source of controversy

Lee’s drop box has been a source of both praise and controversy. Some critics think the drop box enables mothers to abandon their baby, while others think it interferes with social programs that provide counseling for mothers, making them aware of other options and of the consequences of abandonment for both mother and child. There are concerns about the anonymity of the drop box; children without birth records do not officially exist and are vulnerable to abuse and trafficking.

Lee’s drop box, like many other well-intentioned charitable works, is indeed a band-aid solution to a social problem. This, however, does not invalidate its important role in preserving lives.  To draw an analogy between the story of the child who throws one starfish back into the ocean when there is an entire beach of starfish that she cannot save, Lee’s drop box makes a difference to those babies whose mothers choose the drop box over abandoning them on the street where the possibility of death is very real.

Faith is at the heart of Lee's story

Faith is at the heart of Lee’s story. He clearly feels that God has called him to this task, a task that he executes selflessly, without counting the cost. Lee suffers from sleep deprivation, diabetes and high blood pressure. Then, there is the emotional toll of his ministry, which comes through poignantly when Lee talks about Hannah, who was born with brain damage and died unexpectedly at age six. Lee’s lingering sense of loss is palpable, as is his concern about the future of his children when he can no longer care for them.

The inspiration for Lee’s drop box came from his son, a severely disabled twenty-six year old who was hospitalized for fourteen years. Lee admits that accepting his son was difficult and prompted serious existential questions. “Why did God give me this child? I wasn’t grateful for this baby.”  Through his struggle to find answers, Lee came to see in his son the preciousness of each human life. He named him Eun-man, which means “full of God’s grace.” 

Lee’s devotion to the disabled reminded me of the work of Jean Vanier, who founded the first L’Arche community for developmentally challenged adults over 50 years ago.   Vanier, who sees and accepts imperfections as part of being human, has said, “The weak teach the strong to accept and integrate the weakness and brokenness of their own lives.” 

This may be the purpose that Lee alludes to when he describes Eun-man as his teacher, and when he says of the disabled babies that others would throw away, “They’re not the unnecessary ones in the world. God sent them here with a purpose.” 

A critical message for our time

Mother Theresa, Jean Vanier and Pastor Lee have a message that is critically important for our time: every life has value and purpose. As a society, we struggle with this message. It contradicts the parallels we draw between human dignity and quality of life with bodily vigor and intellectual vitality.

Vanier wrote in Becoming Human, “As soon as we start judging people instead of welcoming them as they are – with their sometimes hidden beauty, as well as their more frequently visible weaknesses – we are reducing life, not fostering it.” 

In the process, we reduce our own humanity. 

Assisted suicide is not the only answer to suffering

"We operate under a false premise when we equate the suffering arising from disease, illness or disability with a loss of dignity."

The Supreme Court of Canada rules in favour of physician assisted suicide

It is eloquent, persuasive and based in law; it almost had me convinced that physician assisted dying is the correct response to suffering.

In the Carter decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a competent adult who consents to death, and has a “grievous and irremediable medical condition (including illness, disease or disability) that causes enduring suffering that is intolerable to the individual in the circumstances of his or her condition” has a right to physician assisted dying.  The ruling does not restrict physician assisted dying to those who are terminally ill.

The Court found that a total ban against physician assisted dying is broader than necessary to achieve its objective of protecting  “vulnerable persons from being induced to commit suicide at a time of weakness”.  In the view of the Court, the consequences of the prohibition impinge on the individual’s right to life, liberty and security of the person.

In the words of the Court, “the prohibition deprives some individuals of life, as it has the effect of forcing some individuals to take their own lives prematurely, for fear they would be incapable of doing so when they reached the point where suffering was intolerable. The rights to liberty and security of the person, which deal with concerns about autonomy and quality of life, are also engaged. An individual’s response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy. The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person.”

As I read through the lengthy decision, it was difficult not to let the logic of the Court inform my belief on the matter.   It is hard to argue against the individual’s right to autonomy and dignity when I like to make my own decisions, and have no wish to endure suffering, nor watch someone else endure it.

Still, I have issues with physician assisted dying.

A different view of suffering

My attitude towards suffering differs from the negative approach towards suffering implied in the term “dying with dignity”, and endorsed in the Carter decision. In my view, the human person is created in the image and likeness of God. This divine stamp on the individual sanctifies every human life, and gives each of us an innate and inviolable dignity.

We operate under a false premise when we equate the suffering arising from disease, illness or disability with a loss of dignity. I have known people to endure each of these with great dignity, allowing their suffering to transform them, and in the process, their relationships and those who cared for them. Rather than losing their dignity, they grew in graciousness.

Archbishop Antonio Mancini of Halifax-Yarmouth, in a homily I happened to hear while visiting Halifax a few days after the Supreme Court decision, addressed our struggle to make sense of suffering.  “When there is no meaning to suffering, it is only pain, and of course people are afraid… But where there is meaning, where there is love and proper care, where there is community support, suffering can become sacrifice. Sacrifice is not just another word for ‘put up with’. It literally means…to make something “sacred”. To take suffering and to transform it with meaning is to make the reality of suffering a manifestation of the holy and the sacred.”

While this view of the relationship between suffering and dignity differs from that of the majority of Canadians and of the Supreme Court, there is the same desire to act compassionately towards those who suffer. From this standpoint, the compassionate response begins with a willingness to share, not to avoid, the suffering of another, and encompasses support and care.

For those who do not applaud this decision as one giant step forward for Canadians, and who seek an alternate response, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement that may be helpful. The bishops recommend that legislators interpret the decision as narrowly as possible so as not to open the door to euthanasia. They urge governments and professional associations to implement policies that will protect the freedom of conscience of health-care workers who oppose physician assisted dying. And, they renew their call for universal access to quality hospice-palliative care.

Undergirding these action points is an unshakeable belief in the sanctity of human life as a reality that defines the human person, and in the power of love to ease the transition from life to death in even the most difficult of situations.

We learn to be racist

Just who was Jesus?  

It’s a question that commands a lot of attention, and engenders a whole lot of heated debate.  While I have read scholarly books on the topic, I rather like a comedic set of arguments that attempts to define Jesus in terms of racial stereotypes.

It does not matter whether you believe in Jesus or not, these sometimes irreverent arguments challenge us to see an image of divinity in all people, and to acknowledge, respect and cherish the innate dignity of others.

Quoting from these anonymous arguments, Jesus was black because he called everyone brother; he liked Gospel; and, he couldn’t get a fair trial. But, there are three equally good arguments that he was aboriginal: he was at peace with nature; he ate a lot fish; and, he talked about the Great Spirit. Then again, there are three equally good arguments that he was Italian: he talked with his hands; he had wine with his meals; and, he used olive oil. 

Racism in sport

Two recent incidents of racism in sport  - the offensive comments of Los Angeles Clipper’s owner, Donald Sterling, against blacks, and an alarming number of racist tweets against PK Sabban of the Montreal Canadiens following his overtime goal against the Boston Bruins - provide striking examples of the inability of some people to accept others who differ from themselves.

While these incidents have sparked discussion about the prevalence of racism in pro-sports, and have drawn attention to racism in the NCAA, which Billy Hawkins, professor of kinesiology at the University of Georgia, dubs the “new plantation”, racism is definitely not limited to the sporting arena. 

and in Canadian history

Consider the legacy of Indian residential schools in Canada.   The very creation of the residential school system was an expression of the concept ‘the white man’s burden’, which held that the white man was a superior being responsible for the management of non-whites. All too frequently, this attitude of racial superiority resulted in terrible abuses to First Nations children as we are learning from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which wrapped up four years of hearings in late April of this year.

Racism perpetuates itself

None of us are born with racist views. We learn them, whether at home, in our social circles or elsewhere in our culture.

As an adolescent growing up in the late 1960’s, I had an early lesson in the perpetuation of racism that made racism much more real to me than the violent images on television coming out of the southern United States.

My older sisters were members of “Up with People”, a movement of young people that promoted racial equality through music.  Our hometown was pretty much white, and when a visiting choir from the States came to perform, some families were reluctant to billet the black teens, which was strangely ironic. My mother was indignant that race was an issue in placing these kids, and volunteered to take two black billets.

That night at the supper table, we talked about prejudice, including the prejudice that existed against Italians, and the derogatory term “wop” that cut deeply, and angered my Italian father and grandfather, who were both Canadian citizens. We did not talk about the prejudice against aboriginal people; while Canadians watched the civil rights movement unfold to the south, the majority of us were oblivious of the destructive systemic racism in our own country.

That conversation left an indelible impression on my developing character and sense of morality. The message that night was clear. People are people. There is no such thing as the “other”; we are sisters and brothers of one human family.

While my parents used the moment of welcoming two billets into our home to instill respect for the “other” in their daughters, I could have learned a very different lesson that night had I been sitting somewhere else, like in a hockey arena, listening to adults around me jeer at a skilled NHL player for being black.

So, just who was Jesus?  He is any person who is marginalized, ridiculed or abused.