Photo Jam 3: Midwinter Christmas Party

This took me a while to find photos of, but about 3 weeks ago, we had a Mid-Winter Christmas Party up at Ngatiawa. It was a great sleepover, complete with games, music, good food, and excellent company. We all had lots of fun! Remember when I said that L'arche likes to celebrate? Well, they're really good at it.

In addition to having everyone in the community let off a bit of steam at the party, the sleepover was a good opportunity for us assistants to see one another and talk after most of the core members had gone to bed. Things were made all the more merry by a surprise guest: Laura, who was community leader for 4 years, but took off one year ago to travel around India and the Pacific Islands, came back. Assistants had been given a bit of warning, but our core members were happily astonished to see her again, especially Leighanne.

After we returned home to Arahata, Laura came around to have dinner and sleep over. Kim, Leighanne, and Brenda were all very happy. All in all, I think that this party was the community's highlight of 2009.

No animals (farm or otherwise) were harmed in the production of these photos, but Peter did prick himself on a pushpin while playing "Pin the Nose on Rudolph."

Check out Peter breakdancing, complete with his Special Olympics swimming uniform. Bust a move, Peter!

From left to right: Ray, a community member at Ngatiawa, and Kim dancing with Akiko, who wore festive pigtails for the occasion.

Stephen in his usual camouflage fatigues being silly with Sophie.

It's a Kiwi Tradition to do these things called "poppers" or "snappers" at Christmas time. Basically, they're cardboard tubes that break apart with a loud crack to reveal candies or toys and a little fortune-cookie-like joke (there were alot of bad puns).

Leighanne, blindfolded, plays a game of "Pin the Nose on Rudolph." Good times all around.

Emmet gives Rudolph his best stab. Brenda is "helping" him to stay blindfolded. Cheater cheater, pumpkin eater.

Noeline enjoys her funny, Nordic-looking hat. Funny hats are apparently another Kiwi Christmas tradition.

Katie and Sophie pose next to the Mid-winter Christmas Tree while donning their reindeer antlers. OOH, sparkly!

Yours truly: Too cool. For school.

Julie dances with Sophie to some groovy beats.

Elias gives disco a whirl with Emmet. In addition to Christmas music, we also enjoyed a random assortment of dance tunes from the 50s through the 90s.

When the action heats up, there's no stopping L'arche's blurry rave effect!

After our feasting at dinner, the dance party got started proper in a circle. I think this is a shot of the Hokey Pokey.

Christian dancing with Noeline, who looks less than enthusiastic.

Emmet gets silly with Christian. What pals.

Brenda gives a big hug to Akiko. AWW...BFFs!

The Way of Gentleness

LoveHappy

Photo Courtesy of Katie Pearson

I recently finished reading a new book. Living Gently in a Violent World was written jointly by Stanley Hauerwas (America's favorite sloppy, ill mannered, theological Texan) and Jean Vanier (the founder of L'arche International). Talk about a mash-up! It wasn't so much co-written by these two as it was written in two different voices. Still, it's a good book that I'd recommend to anyone, especially those who are curious about L'arche and what L'arche does as a faith-based organization.

Now, I don't think that Jean Vanier would ever call himself a "theologian" per se, but he sure does think and talk about God alot. As a matter of fact, it's pretty well the foundation of everything the man does and it has been for more than 40 years. He begins the first chapter of the book by discussing fragility and friendship with God. As always, he talks straight from the heart using his experiences in L'arche. Vanier speaks of transformation, the transformation of L'arche's core members, but especially the transformation of assistants. A person can't come into L'arche and not be transformed and this has everything to do with the concepts of Encounter and Gift. Vanier writes:

"What makes such transformation possible? Jesus says that when we're born of the Spirit, we don't know where that Spirit is coming from or where it's going-there is a reason for not knowing. Transformation gives us the audacity to advance along a road of unknowing" (Living Gently in a Violent World, p.27).

I wrote in a earlier post that a welcomed Guest (or "ghost" to use the etymology)-a welcomed Other-becomes a way toward spirituality or "The Spirit" as we would say in the Christian Tradition. The foundation of L'arche is that a commitment to be transformed by the people who are least "able" in our society is a really good way to encounter God. That is advancing "along a road of unknowing," is a good way to encounter the Transcendent or the Divine.

After studying Liberation Theology, I spent alot of my time in college trying to think subversively. There can be no doubt that Jesus Christ upset the status quo of his time. In that spirit of rebelliousness, I figured that it was my responsibility to find a way to change things. But, according to Vanier and his "Decent Into Littleness," the salvation of the world is God's project. All we must do, then, as faithful people is to listen, to be wounded as the wounded Body of Christ. Wound, not Will, produces change and thus saves the world. At least, that's what I think, anyway.

Yesterday was L’arche Kapiti’s monthly “Open Night of Prayer.” It’s called, “Open” because people from outside of the community are invited to come and interact with us as we pray and celebrate. This night was particularly special because it was the passing of our Community Leader’s Korowai from Michele to Alex. This ceremony cemented the transition from one community leader to the next. My best goes to both Alex and Michele as their lives are shaped by God. It will be interesting to see the shape of our community now. If I remember correctly, Michele gave about 20 years of her life to L’arche.

Needless to say, the transition hits our core members the hardest. From year to year, their lives are a revolving door of assistants, volunteers, and other supporters. Yet, with every new face, they give their hearts faithfully. Relationships take time to form, this is true, but as I said earlier, L’arche loves in the verbal sense of the word. I say ‘verbal’ because L’arche’s love is an action-event. Love in L’arche is a joining, a kind of marriage. One core member in particular, Emmet, spoke before a crowd of more than 50 by his own volition and, as he knelt before everyone gathered at the ceremony, was moved to tears. He was really and truly unafraid to be joined to other people in love. In a Buddhist sense, Emmet was simply being present in that moment, both in its pain and in its hope. In a Christian sense, I think that we would say the Spirit moved though Emmet last night. I think it was God who gave him a kind of loving vocation.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love, the language around love and the concepts that we have of love. My biggest problem with the concept of love in English is that it has only one word. During college, I preferred ancient Greek, which has at least 4 different words to describe different kinds of “loves.” Philia, for instance, is a love between friends, much different from sexual love, which is described by Eros. This way, one can love friends and family with equal strength as one might love a spouse, but not in the same manner. The two loves may be kept as separate, noncompetitive phenomena. In the English-speaking world, we tend to think of love as an act of will. It’s imbedded in our language when we say, “I love her,” or ask, “Do you love me?” Love becomes a very general word in English and, thus, becomes a kind of competitive commodity. Equipped with one word, I would have to love my spouse more than my fiends because differing amounts of love become the only way for us to differentiate between unlike relationships.

There is, however, a benefit to having only one word for love. That is that you can’t call something that isn’t love by the name of love. Speaking of love between both friends and sexual partners, there is one other way to differentiate relationships of love besides new language: non-linguistic context. If I say that I love my friends then, given the subject (“friends”), we can safely assume that this love is different from a kind romantic love, yet this meaning is not inherent to the language itself. Love is either present or it is not, but the specifics depend upon the subject. That is, ‘love’ in a single-word system is not abstracted from specific lovers. Given the choice, I think I prefer this over even Greek. Simply because we have only one word for it, love needn’t be a commodity or a good (or even an abstract absolute) because love is not a phenomenon as such. Rather, love might be a way to describe a phenomenon, based only on how one is related to another. In this way, love becomes a joining, a kind of marriage.

Just to clarify, love relationships can be differentiated from other relationships since love relationships involve a transcendence of the Self. In this way, when I say, “I love you.” I am essentially saying here that “I am joined to you, because your presence has transcended mine.” This is different from the statement of saying simply, “I am joined to you,” because to make that statement would be mechanical in its nature and, thus, it does not necessarily describe an overcoming of one’s Self. We are all joined by a world economy, but that doesn’t mean that we all love one another. Though perhaps, given this, we ought to be somehow transcended in our economic relationships so that they become more loving. If a coffee grower in South America starves because I went to Starbucks, then that wound must reach me somehow in order for my economic choices to grow in love.

That’s all rather abstract, so let me break it down. Let’s say that you have a romantic interest that develops over time. What percentage of this love is Philia versus Eros? When does a love stop being Philia as such and become erotic in expression? Moreover, when could we be so bold as to describe it as Agape? What signs would we look for? Given that there are billions of different people across the world engaged in all manners of different love relationships, I don’t think that we would find many consistencies. It’s really difficult to break love down into constituent parts and discernable definitions. “Love,” as a catch-all term, is too complicated for a process of definition. Even if it were broken up using language, we would need thousands or millions of words to adequately describe it. So, instead of trying to do that, let’s keep one word for love, as we have in English, and use it to describe, not a commodity, but an expression of events. If there is no love present in a relationship, then there is no joining, no marriage. If, however, there is love, then love creates something new, a synergy or a gestalt sort of presence. Indeed it is true that when two people fall deeply in love with one another, we tend to think of them as a single unit. It matters not whether they are friends or sexual partners.

Levinas describes the encounter with Other as Ethics itself. When another comes to me, their very presence challenges me and the question is asked of myself, “How must I respond?” In every case, I respond out of love because every response will require some sort of a joining, some kind of marriage. I say this because, regardless of my response, a new phenomenon of Being will be enacted once I have met this other person. I could say, “Hi!” or I could punch this Other in the face. Either way, something new will be called forward into time and space. That is, there will be an incarnation of some sort, something will be enacted. Given this, the question becomes not, “Do you love?” but rather, “How do you love?” Love is implied in the fact that a phenomenon has been observed.

Julie is one of our core members who lives in Rangimarie house. She is always testing people for their love. She literally goes around and asks everyone she meets, “Do you love me?” By this point in her life, she’s probably had more assistants than I can count. Assisting Julie is no small task. Indeed, assisting any of our core members requires a deep, personal relationship, as we are involved in nearly every (and I mean every) facet of our core member’s lives. Despite all the assistants who come and go, core members give their hearts away. They fall in love with so many assistants over the course of their lives, but not before asking, “Do you love me?” They want to know if we will be with them, if we will live with them. I think, that our core members would like to be joined with us, married in a sense. When we are joined, when we love, we become the gestalt phenomenon known as a L’arche community. We make a family; a very fragile, very vulnerable family. I say fragile because L’arche is also joined to the personal families of our core members, our churches, our local geographic communities, our national governments, and the economy, among many other things. Any single one of these relationships (these marriages) could break L’arche, could wound it, could kill it. L’arche, as an organization, however, seems to rest happily in this space. If someone says that L’arche, “doesn’t have a good theology,” then, rather than rush to a defense, Jean Vanier breaks at that weak point and teams up with Stanley Hauerwas to (happily) write a book on it. Like a chandelier held aloft by rubber bands, L’arche’s existence is a gift, an expression of God’s love.

Let me set a scene for you: I am more or less tediously drying dishes with Julie standing beside me. We’re the last two left working in the kitchen. Julie goes on with her usual litany of questions, most of which bounce off me like so many small, inconsequential pebbles. Then she turns, her head lifts up, and she asks me straight, “Do you love me?” I respond, “Of course,” but I wonder. Later that evening, we have prayer time. Kim holds up all the photos of the people for whom she would like to pray, many of them are assistants Many of them are also now gone from her life, separated by vast distances and time. But she holds them up and she holds them inside herself. After Julie’s question, I realize that when I look at Kim, I am looking at a fragile gift. Like all our core members, the phenomenon known as Kim holds a certain part of all these people. They are joined to her and she must be, in some way, joined to them. This collection of energy that we have named Kim has been gathered from every corner of the globe: from New Zealand, from the Philippines, from Germany, from Poland, from Canada, and from the US. In short, Kim is how God has chosen to love this world, an incarnate expression of the divine. I know this, and I feel as though her life is a thousand times more valuable. Kim is truly unique, as is Leighanne, Peter, Emmet, Noeline, Stephen, and Julie. To return the favor, of course, my life must become that kind of gift, gentle and fragile.

I might critique my own philosophical and theological outlook here in terms of Ethics because it does not have an “ought to” component. This theology of giftedness can make no explicit moral claims, since it expresses love as an inevitability. I would critique my own thoughts here on the basis of this argument, except that I do not believe that we can afford to say “ought to.” The “should” of morality carries with it a kind of tyranny; an imposition of Self upon the Other. I would like to resist in my vocation not only the power of Empire, but power itself. It is an impossible project, but I believe that this sort of resistance is what Vanier and Hauerwas speak of when they discuss L’arche as a (believe it or not) peace movement. Truly, it is a “way of unknowing.”

So, back to my book report: Jean Vanier talks about the fragility of L’arche and its giftedness we he talking about the peace of L’arche. He says this:

“In our communities, things can be going badly, and a visitor will come and say, ‘Oh, what peace you have in this place.’ Everybody sort of smiles. Somewhere it is true that there is peace. But it is so fragile. It is all a gift. Not all of it comes from our efforts. In time we learn to see and receive the gift of our life together and the peace that is there. And somehow, in the process, we are transformed” (Living Gently, p.39).

Last night, the woman sitting next to me spoke of L’arche’s “happiness.” I sort of smiled. I think I had to because, not more than 10 minutes later, Kim completely lost the plot and started sobbing in her seat. We were worried about her and Leighanne being at the party, that the noisy environment and stress might be too upsetting, so we decided to leave a bit early. Despite the new plan, Kim wouldn’t get up. She was upset and wanted to go, but wasn’t moving; a sizable catch-22. The happiness and peace of the moment gave way and disappeared before our very eyes.

I’ve said that each of our core members (and, indeed, all persons) are expressions of God’s love. There’s another side to that, however. When she broke down at Open Night of Prayer, and when the peace of L’arche broke down with her, I think that Kim reminded me to never make idols. I must never make the mistake of looking at a core member and saying, “This is God.” I believe that, even in her sadness, Kim was revealing God’s love somehow, but I must also realize that this is not me seeing God. Instead, it seems that God is seeing me. As Marion says, this difference in perspective marks the line between an Idol and an Icon. I would much rather see Kim as an Icon of God, wonderful in her own way, than as an Idol, caged by some kind of metaphysics. If I am to be really faithful, then I cannot reach God. Instead, I can only say that God provokes me, calls me forward.

As an analogy, imagine your brain. It is composed of trillions of tiny, cellular, carbon-based robots. Not a single one of them knows who “you” are, nor could any one of these robots care who “you” are, not even in the slightest. But if you stack a few trillion of them together, then there is this fragile gift known as mental consciousness. The cells of a brain don’t have to know what it is that they’re doing in order to do it. They, as brain cells, are merely being themselves. It could be said that a kind of direction calls them forward in an electrochemical duty, but to the individual cell (or even a whole lobe’s worth) the aim of this participation is unknown. Like our notions of The Holy Spirit, the movement of consciousness is a mystery to brain cells, both its coming and its going. The salvation of the world is not our project, it is God’s concern. Despite the fact that we are as integral to it as brain cells are to consciousness, I cannot accurately say, “God this” or “God that.” I can only say that something is calling me out into this existence here and now. I share in this larger phenomenon called God, this greatest love, and I use inadequate words like ‘love’ to describe it (Indeed, I cannot help but do this.), but I do not own it. Rather than own love, I belong to love.

I think that Christ, as an Icon of God, attests to this Way of Gentleness. Jesus does not offer an ideology. Jesus makes no claims of “ought to,” but only lives out the fullness of God in human form. With its formation as an organization and with its attempt to be a part of the Body of Christ, L’arche holds its giftedness in opposition to the world’s sense of power. A lot of organizations that “work with the disabled,” have their staff on shifts and such and do not actually live with their clients. As an assistant in L’arche, we quickly learn that if we treat our core members like children, then they will quickly become like children. If we view them as people who need to be “handled” or “supported” then that is all they will ever be to us and we will never change. Even in a progressive model of mental health such as the Empowerment Model, we would end up caging our core members, making them into idols to support who we we are. In this, God does not enter. In this, no Other comes to break us and we wind up with only more of the Same and more of the same society. Without the commitment to live together, we do not become lovers, since we do not join. In order to join, we must be gentle, we must be listeners. In listening and being seen, we will be changed, hopefully, changed by God. The Gospel’s do not say, “Blessed are the changemakers.” No, it says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” This is because peacemakers are gentle, they offer up themselves.

It appears as though I’ve written a lengthy text. I haven’t said much here that is not already elsewhere, but I add to those thoughts the concept of gentleness and of the image of L’arche as a peace movement. I’m beginning to see that my intellectualism is as much a condition as it is a talent. It was only by tying up the past 6 weeks into a nice, neat package that I was able to get some sleep over them. I confess that I needed this as much as Kim or Leighanne need their daily routines. I had originally thought that coming to L’arche would do a lot to change this part of me, perhaps even to destroy it. Rather than trying to change this aspect of myself, however, I think it only necessary that I confess it. Inadequate and weak as it is, my intellectualism is very much an element of what I do and the ways in which the Spirit moves me. So, I have a new project.

In the future, I will continue to digest the books on my reading list, but I’m adding an author who sort of makes my skin crawl: Dan Dennett. Given my interest in a philosophy of science and a philosophy of mind, I think he’s the guy to read. Like Jean Vanier’s response to the question of “L’arche’s theology,” I’m going to try to let his work influence me a bit, so that I can converse more fluidly with disciplines such as Science, Economics, Business, and Politics. To be honest, I’m feeling a bit provoked by Freedom Evolves and Consciousness Explained. Why I feel this way is a long conversation best saved for another time.

In the meanwhile, I’ve still got a few more posts to catch up on and I’ll try to post some more photos when I get my hands on them. A lot of you folks out there are coming up on our prayer table at Arahata. You’re definitely in my thoughts. Please, pray for me as well.

Independence, Ghosts, and Spirits

So, yesterday Rangimarie house threw a party for us. Specifically speaking, the party was for me, since it was an American Independence Day celebration and I'm the only American. Weird, since Canada Day was only 3 days prior and it passed without so much as a single celebratory whisper. One thing about L'arche: there are lots of excuses to party and they are employed, seemingly at random, depending on how long it has been since the last party. Birthdays are often combined and minor holidays are often skipped, unless found to be convenient. Nevertheless, a regular party ensures that celebration remains a central tenet of our community. This Saturday, many Kiwis will be celebrating Mid-Winter Christmas, which for us, includes a sleepover for the whole community out at Ngatiawa (that rural, Christian community I mentioned earlier). Mid-winter Christmas is basically a completely fabricated holiday that was designed to compensate for the fact that New Zealand usually has to endure an endure winter without a single national celebration. Pretty sweet, if you ask me. At this point, I'm all for inventing new traditions. L'arche does love a good party. Don't worry, I'll try to get some decent pictures this weekend.

Back to Independence Day: Christian, the house leader at Rangimarie, grilled hamburgers. It was his way of being as American as possible. For me, I felt a bit more at home. The burgers were good, but very small compared to traditional American ones. Everything is smaller here. More accurately stated, everything is larger in the US, especially food items. Hamburgers, milk, soda pop, everything...by about double in terms of either volume or mass. I think that, if I weren't in L'arche, I'd be annoyed by it. But, within this organization, fast food is a luxury, sweets are a rarity, and grocery shopping is a weekly event at an absolute maximum. Smaller items and portions just seem to fit with the pace of life. I now have but one consistent vice: a weekly pack of Hubba Bubba bubble gum, worth about 3 Dollars Kiwi.

I've been thinking alot lately about Christianity and practices of hospitality, partying included. My working definition of "hospitality" is as follows: The welcoming of guests by hosts. Hospitality always involves making space; a displacement of some kind. I mentioned in an earlier post, and am still quite keen on the idea, that the word "guest" comes from the same German root as the words "geist" and "ghost." This root word means "stranger" or (my personal favorite translation) "enemy." Jesus said to pray, not for our friends, but for our enemies, to make space for the people who harm us. After having read Levinas, I think that this has got to be an issue of Ethics, straight up. It just makes sense.

According to Levinas, the absolute Other is what we might call the Transcendent. In Latin, the etymology of this word means "climb over" or "pass over." Levinas uses this to say that Ethics is always a "passing over" of self. Other calls the self into question. For me in college, I was called into question by the poor and, eventually, the disabled. The very existence of these people put my Self, literally, my very salvation at risk; it put my sense of Being in jeopardy. As well it should, for the Kingdom of God is an image built upon absolute justice and nothing less. I had no choice then but to make room for the poor within my Being. The Church, in it's long history, has often come to the same conclusion; that it has no choice but to confess the limits of itself and displace at least a part of Self in favor of Other.

In my senior thesis, I explored this concept of displacement and I called it "wound." I simply don't know how else to describe a sudden and provocative opening. Like a stab or a gunshot, Other always seem to make a wound in its displacement of Self. Wound is always painful, but it need not always be negative. In genetics, for instance, breakage is necessary for mutation, change, and the overall evolution of life. Wound becomes a necessary component of flourishing.

Now, let's apply this same principle to organizations such as L'arche. These are organizations that we may call hospitable in that they make space. They invite the Other, even in its displacement of Self. The stranger or enemy comes and, in breaking some part of society, forms a new consciousness with it. In the case of L'arche, it began in the Christian Church. The Otherness of those with disabilities displaced, to being with, only two people: Jean Vanier and Father Thomas Philippe. Here, a new consciousness, a new Being called "L'arche," was created. But L'arche, or any organization like L'arche, need not have started with the Church. Buddhists, Muslims, or Secular Humanists may have well as started it. Although such a founding would have created a very different sort of spirituality, the result would have likely been similar.

My point in this exercise is this: All people, it appears, have some kind of spirituality. I do not mean to say that spirituality is an innate quality by itself, but that spirituality is an expression of the need to be transcended. That is, all people appear to have some method, rhyme, or reason for displacing their Self. They all seem to need a way to make room for Other within Being. It is this displacement which we commonly call the phenomenon of "spirituality."

I'm not a big fan of the phrase, "I'm spiritual, but not religious," but I can understand now why people like to say it. Not everyone has a known method for getting over (transcending) themselves. The word "Religion" comes to us from the Latin "religare" which means "to bind fast." Originally, I hated this etymology. Religion, I thought, shouldn't be a "tying back" or a simple "reigning in." I now realize, however, that when one ties his or her spirituality to certain people, places, rituals, ceremonies, or texts (any kind of practice, really), then, at this point, we encounter the phenomenon commonly called "Religion." For Christians, the idea that God was made incarnate in the figure of Jesus Christ is our big tie-back. It's an anchor for what we may aptly term "Christian spirituality" and it, therefore, creates a phenomenon dubbed, "the Christian Religion."

Now, back to hospitality: If Hosts welcome Guests and if Guests are essentially Enemies, then how interesting it is that a ghost who is welcomed becomes a spirit. The change in language is subtle, but you'll notice that it makes all the difference. Ghosts haunt us, even when they are pleasurable, but spirits endear us, even when they are painful. In Christianity, we welcome "The Spirit" during hard times, times of discernment, times of trial and desperation. The churches from which I hail are continually on the lookout for where the will of God is making itself known, even if such a revelation causes discomfort. The only thing which changes between the phenomenon of "ghost" and that of "spirit" is the act of extended hospitality. A stranger welcomed is a spiritual guide.