Touching Vulnerability, Becoming Human

Last Wednesday, we had a formation up at Ngatiawa. It was my last Desert Day for this year at L'Arche. Father Rod led us with some excerpts he'd gathered from Jean Vanier's work. I'd like to put them up here and do a bit of reflection before I tell a small story.

From Father Rod:

Here are some thoughts from Becoming Human from chapter 1, "Lonliness." The section is headed, "Order and Disorder." I chose this piece to shar because it hits at the level of change and emergence from the heart places, the place of our own insecurity and brokenness.

"In human beings there is a constant tension between order and disorder, connectedness and loneliness, evolution and revolution, security and insecurity. Our universe is constantly evolving: the old order gives way to a new order and this in its turn crumbles when the next order appears. It is no different in our lives in the movement from birth to death.

"Change of one sort or another is the essence of life...when we try to prevent the forward movement of life, we may succeed for a while...but inevitably there is an explosion.

"And so empires of ideas, as well as empires of wealth and power, come and go. To live well is to observe in today's apparent order the tiny anomalies that are the seeds of change, the harbingers of the order of tomorrow. This means living in a stat of a certain insecurity, in anguish and loneliness, which, at its best, can push us towards the new. Too much security and the refusal to evolve, to embrace change, leads to a kind of death. Too much insecurity, however, can also mean death. To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move into insecurity and seeming disorder. In this way we discover the new." (p. 13-15)

"As humans we crave belonging, we need the connectedness to others that brings security, but this connectedness can prevent the natural movement and evolution that we need in our lives. It can also get in the way of creativity and stifle the natural loneliness that pushes us to discover something new, that pushes us closer to God. This loneliness is the loneliness of the individual who steps out from the group, who takes a chance on what can be discovered and done outside of the norm.

"So here is the paradox: as humans we are caught between competing drives, the drive to belong, to fit in and be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and the drive to let our deepest selves rise up, to walk alone, to refuse the accepted and the comfortable, and this can mean, at least for a time, the acceptance of anguish. It is in the group that we discover what we have in common. It is as individuals that we discover a personal relationship with God. We must find a way to balance our two opposing impulses." (p.18-19)

"When Jean Vanier talks about that place [of safety and intimacy] he often stretches out his arm and cups his hand as if it holds a small, wounded bird, He asks: 'What will happen if I open my hand fully?' We say: 'The bird will try to flutter it's wings, and it will fall and die.' Then he asks again: 'But what will happen if I close my hand?' We say: 'The bird will be crushed and die.' Then he smiles and says, 'An intimate place is like my cupped hand, neither totally open nor totally closed. It is the space where growth can take place." -Henri Nouwen in Lifesigns

"Community is a place of conflict... [One] source of conflict is between being open and being closed. [Too often] the extended family is closed...people may sacrifice their personal growth, freedom and becoming to the god of belonging...a death to personal growth. A community which is called to keep people open is a vulnerable community that takes risks. It does not hand on to its own security and power, obliging people to stay.

There is a myth about community, just as there is a myth about marriage. The reality of marriage is that it is a place where a man and a woman are called to sacrifice their own egos on the altar in order to create one body..." -Jean Vanier in From Brokenness to Community

Now, I'd like to start my reflections by saying that I seldom agree wholeheartedly with Jean Vanier. Marriage, for instance, isn't always between a "man and a woman." And I find it very difficult to imagine myself has having "opposing impulses," one half of which are headed toward any objective other than God. On that same token, however, I have to admit that I find his words to be generally very inspiring and that I really can't help but be influenced by them.

Vanier talks about being human as being in a constant tension and I couldn't agree more. Somewhere, I think I must have said as much in my own writing. The basic idea here that I'm infatuated with is this tension between order and chaos. The only kinds of Gifts worth wanting are the ones that come out of the unknown and the unexpected and that's because such Gifts have the power to change everything; to mutate the known universe, so to speak.

I also love that Vanier talks about community as a place of conflict. Conflict is not only common, but also quite necessary. For many of us, conflict is the only way we understand boundaries and limitations. During our Desert Day, Father Rod went on to talk about the ways in which we touch each other's vulnerabilities, reaching out to feel the wound of another in the same way that Thomas wishes to touch the holes in Jesus's hands and side. We provoke one another; we find each other by finding the weak spots. And, therefore, the whole phenomenon of community is made from these weaknesses; these sensitivities; these vulnerabilities.

Tonight, after dinner, we were getting ready to do the dishes when one of my own vulernabilities was prodded by a core member of ours. She wanted to help with the dishes so much that she actually refused to let assistants anywhere near the basin, perhaps afraid that we would rob her of her power by checking the cleanliness of her work. Although the confrontation did not get physical, I did attempt to force her away from her position, so that I could wash the dishes myself. Upon reflection, I realize that I have a great fear of not being wanted. I need to be needed. When this core member asserted her own independence by refusing to be helped, it touched a wound inside of me. I reacted to protect myself; to preserve my need to belong; to be needed somehow.

Of course, if we are to have clean dishes, then our core members will require some help. Where then is the balance? As assistants, we often speak of the blurry line between our work and our lives in community. Tonight offered me some clarity in that line. It is Julie's job to do the dishes. As a matter of fact, it's the job of all our core members and they all know it. It is my job (strictly speaking) to make sure that the dishes are clean. I realize now that the obstinate core member in this story was merely trying to preserve her place, the same as me. She obviously felt insecure; that I might try to take it from her. Being a royal idiot myself, I did exactly that. In the end, a refusal to share the task led us both to complete dissatisfaction. Yet the clash was necessary. Because, in the end, we both gained the same insight. It was only through the conflict that we learned to be with one another.

I told her (once we had both apologized and agreed to re-do all the dishes, sharing the job from the beginning to the end) that I think it's important to share what we have, even though we have different roles. It's the "being together" that makes us a L'Arche community, I said. She asked me, "Why?" And I couldn't really find the words, but this sentence came out of my mouth: "Because, otherwise, we're just a bunch of people."

Now this was a strange thought for me. I had always been brought up to believe in the individual person and individual rights. But here I was, using the word "people" as a diminutive. Why do we have relationships anyway? Isn't simply being a "person" the very pinnacle of evolutionary history? Why do we feel so compelled to be wounded and to touch the wounds of others? I think it's because of what Vanier says about that tension between connectedness and individuality: We don't want to be "just people." We want to create something larger; to sacrifice our egos on some altar in order to make one body.

The evolution keeps going. Contrary to some of the thoughts of Jacques Derrida, deconstruction does not spiral downward into death, it spirals up into life. That is to say, the gaps in our Being do not open so that we are torn apart. Rather, these gaps open to reveal new Gifts to us, to change us. In doing so, they do not pull an organism apart, but instead, cause it to merge with the Other that provokes it. In this merger, this union, the organism no longer exists only for itself, but rather the symbiotic whole. I think of those 3 (or so) trillion carbon-based robots that, when stacked together, make up your brain. What a miserable existence; toiling to fire electrical pulses all the time in endless cycles. What rights does a brain cell have? And yet it quickly becomes clear that the cell does not live for itself.

Community can teach us such lessons, yes. Even more importantly, however, community can give us the actual connections needed to form that next layer of Being that we crave so much. In a community, you know exactly how small you are. We're up to almost 7 billion now and that, my friends, is alot of vulnerability.

Lessons Learned

It's time for me to answer the final big question for this year: What, exactly, did I come away with? Or, posited less selfishly, what is it that I have been taught by my year in L'Arche?

Lesson Number 1: A Memory of Place

Every person has a certain memory, perhaps even every thing, but this year I learned that places have memories as well, especially communities. Communities remember their foundings, growth, obstacles, and refoundings as a whole, but communities also remember all the people who made and make it.

What I mean, in my case, is that even though I have not personally experienced the beginning, history, and growth of L'Arche Kapiti, I know these events. I do not know them in a merely cognitive sense, as information that has been downloaded into me from others, but in a deeper sense. I have met most of the people involved. I have experienced their touches; their individual characters. I have felt an emotional impact from them, despite the fact that I was not here when when most of them were.

Some would call this "institutional" memory, but L'Arche isn't really an institution. Rather than the memory of L'Arche Kapiti being summed up in so many reports on file, it is kept, most prominently, by our core members. They know the faces and names of those long gone, the times of trouble, and all the moments of fun and excitement. If anyone asks them, they will talk first about their friends.

In addition to having this memory of place; in addition to now being a small part of this larger story, I also have a personal memory of place. I can measure my changes in attitude and perception from the time that I arrived until now. I can tell you who it is who has provoked these personal changes. I can name incidents and names. I can talk also of the wider Kapiti community will all of it's unsung heroes, that holds our little community so gently. I can tell stories of these people, this place, and myself.

Say what you will about Julie (and I do), but that woman has the best emotional intuition I have ever witnessed. When I'm going through a hard time, there's simply no way I can hide it from her, even when I try my hardest to keep it all in. And, not only does Julie know exactly how I'm feeling, but she's there to offer me a kind word, a pat on the head, and a cup of tea. It's pure magic and it's worth some deep appreciation.

Beside memory, I now know what stories are: Storytelling is a memory machine. When you tell a story, you are uploading all of your memories into language to pass them back down to your audience. When you hear a story, you're gaining knowledge through memory. It may be factually imperfect, but it is memory nonetheless. And, when you love a story, you can retell it as though it were your own. This is because, really - on some level, you belong to that story. It is a part of what makes you who you are. You wouldn't be the same without your favorite stories because they contain some of your most precious memories; they literally hold pieces of you.

Lesson Number 2: Fear Stops Everything

I've spoken just a bit before about what is feels like to live under a cloud of passive aggression. It's simply a terrible existence to have. I would like to extend that here to include all types of fear. As a reaction to stimuli, fear is mean to keep us safe. Fear inhibits action. When I am inactive, when I find myself unable to start a difficult conversation, when I find myself losing eye contact, when I find that I am avoiding someone, then I know that I am living in fear because it feels as though I am constantly being inhibited.

In the short-term, perhaps fear is a useful thing. But, let's face it, nobody is getting out of here alive. We're going to give our lives for something. Fear does not stop that process of living and dying, it only inhibits actions along the way. Fear puts tension on your muscles and pressure on your bones (at least is feels that way to me). It's a kind of prison, really, if drawn out over the long-term.

Let me make this a little personal. There are some people I just cannot stand to live with. They rub me in all the wrong ways almost all the time, right down their pesky little mannerisms, even the seemingly innocuous ones. I know that, if ever I should have to start a difficult conversation with one particular core member, my relationship with her will almost always suffer for it. I can't win. So, for a while, I simply avoided starting the conversation. Why fight? What's the point? Well, after living in the tension of fear for too long, things finally just boil over and everybody suffers for it. Is fear of some personal emotional discomfort really worth that? Of course, I eventually had to conclude that "no, it is not." So, now, I always try to bring up the hard things whenever appropriate. And when I do, I try to remember that...

Lesson Number 3: Honesty is (in) Everything

Now, if the matter at hand is important enough, I know that I can fight about it if I need to. I have the emotional control to be angry when I need to be, even if I don't feel like it. This very important learned emotional intelligence allows me to take a discussion up to the level of argument and argument to outright feud (if the situation calls for such). Before L'Arche, I never would have thought such a thing was possible in me, not to mention sometimes necessary.

The trouble of course, is knowing when it's appropriate to exercise emotional release and over what issues. I get the impression that my generation has been raised on too much happiness psychology. We've got it into our heads somehow that healthy people just never fight because they're too busy focusing on the positive to let any of those nasty negative emotions into the picture. I really doubt that. After L'Arche, I know that, as humans, we need our full emotional range to feel happy and well in any relationship. Ownership of one's feelings can open up both parties in a relationship, so that everybody gets closer together. And all it takes to do that is honesty.

An example: A certain core member of ours has a issue with his temper. He's a physical guy who likes to throw his weight around and doesn't respond much to verbal tones. Anything spoken in a soft tone, he generally disregards. One particular day, this fellow starts harassing other people for no good reason, lashing out at them, slamming doors, and projecting his anger onto everyone in vocal range. What would you do, as an assistant? Well...How does all that make you feel? Aren't these actions unfair and upsetting? Sure they are. So, just own that feeling of anger and express it. Mind you, we're not talking about violence here, just an honest ownership of feeling. When I know how I feel, I can put it out there as a kind of communication. Firm body language, raised tone of voice, and some neutral physical contact put the situation right in order because, now, the person on the receiving end of my feelings can respond honestly themselves. A conversation is happening (though perhaps not verbally as such). If pursued, it will eventually highlight the original cause of the anger (usually - nothing is 100% certain).

Attempts to protect other people's feelings by hiding my own I find to be quite counterintuitive. In the end, that sort of dialog is just another kind of power game, playing itself out in relentless circles. Honesty puts an end to it, provokes real change, and challenges a person at a much deeper level. Of course, we can't fight all the time. There has to be balance. Which brings me to my next point.

Lesson Number 4: Don't Decide on Topics, Decide on Agendas

There are lots of people who have a certain "thing" that they think is correct and therefore push toward in almost all situations. I can't fault people for having strong values. I have strong values too. But my point with this lesson is to say that predetermining what the best outcome of a situation is can often be a gigantic hangup. The reason I say that is because (1) if you lose the outcome you were betting on, then you're basically being walked on by the person you're trying to relate to. Either that, or (2) you win, get exactly what you want, and become a kind of arbiter; a boss. Even if you "win," the latter case still causes the relationship to suffer because nobody likes to be bossed around. If a relationship is going to suffer either way, what's the solution?

Well, first, I had to learn to give up on what I thought was the best thing to do for a given situation. The specifics of what I thought were clearly logical are most certainly not always so to others. Does it matter that all the spoons aren't in the same drawer? Does it matter that the washing will take an extra hour to dry? Does it matter that someone didn't wash their hands before dinner time? On the first two, the answer is almost always "no." They're simply not worth the energy that it would take to discuss them seriously. Why rob someone of their responsibility simply because a job hasn't been done in the way you would have done it? In short, get over it.

On the last question, however, the answer is yes. So, choosing from the three examples given, which one are we going to talk about today? Which one is important enough to warrant a serious conversation? You might hear this one called "picking your battles," but I prefer to think of these topics as bills moving through a law-making body. By the time we get to the decision-making final vote, the outcome should be natural because there will be a mutual give-and-take from letting the previous decisions go. In the end it looks something like this: "Today, we do the laundry the way Kim wants and the hand-washing the way I want." Everybody gets a place. Everybody gets a responsibility. And, most importantly, there are no petty power games going on.

It's not always a perfect system and we do tend to make hard and fast rules about important things like hand-washing and showers and things, but, generally speaking, it's best for everybody if everybody has a say. Giving everyone their say is much easier if your heart's set on a conversation instead of a conclusion.

Lesson Number 5: Just Make a Decision

Like I said above, honesty is extremely important. Also, like I said above, fear is worth avoiding most of the time. If you put those two into a decision-making scenario, the outcome is this one: Just make a decision.

You're in a position where you have to make a decision about something. It's important. You may have a number of options or only a few, but the decision has to be made very soon. Of course, you'll want to gather up all the necessary information first, before deciding anything. Usually, however, the deeper truth here is that something will be lost, regardless of what you decide and that everything will be lost if no decision is made. The solution is simple: own your feelings, make a decision.

Now, I'm often frightened by the prospect of choosing incorrectly. I could, after all, make a huge mistake. I've also learned, however, that (generally speaking) making mistakes is perfectly okay. Even if I choose poorly, making an apology and correcting the situation will only bruise my ego most of all. And it's better that my ego take the beating than my relationships. Plus, making mistakes regularly is a good way to get feedback and learn more about your boundaries and limitations.

Lesson Number 6: Communicate with Utter Transparency

Okay. Now, this may seem extreme, but following this lesson is definitely worth the extra hassle. I speak all the time, abstractly, about how we, as constituent parts, make up some larger whole that we may not be able to perceive. I like to think that we're working on the Body of Christ or some sort of cosmic harmonization. The trick is making that happen. And to do it, we need communication as our bridge.

Now, I don't just mean standard communication here, giving somebody the pure information on something. I mean a deep sense of knowing, to the point where you being to think with other people in mind nearly all the time. When you reach for a selection of cheese in the grocery store, what criteria do you use to make a selection? It's a small choice. No one here is lactose-intolerant or allergic. But, even here, would you think about what other people want? I'm finally getting to a point where I do.

I have a whole library in the back of my head now about mannerisms and preferences. These things let me know where a conflict can be, not only avoided, but prevented altogether, or where spirits can be lifted or where something valuable can be taught or learned. When there's a whole house of people thinking in such ways, it's heaven and everything runs like a well-oiled machine. We become one Body. For anyone even considering giving some time to a L'Arche community, this experience of "work-think togetherness," just by itself, make the whole thing worth it.

Lesson Number 7: BE Present

It's easy for a young guy like me to make all kinds of plans about what might happen in the future or what I'd like to see happen, but I often forget about the things that I'm doing right now. Granted, a load of dishes doesn't seem as important as ontological reasoning, but it can be if it's done right. In any team, it sucks to have a slacker on board; someone who doesn't pull their weight.

This is two-fold. First, there is the immediate notice that there's extra work for everyone else to do which makes life harder in a direct sense. But, second, the fact that this one person isn't paying attention is essentially a slap in the face. It says, "Whatever we're doing now is less important to me than something else. I don't value you," which adds insult to injury and can destroy the rapport of the collective whole.

When I'm distracted, it hurts people. In the abstract, I should have known it would be so because distraction makes me irresponsible. That is, in thinking about or doing something else, i lose my ability to respond. Being irresponsible hurts people, pure and simple. As people, you and I are valuable. We need to own and respect that value as it is.

The whole, the collective society or body, needs us to do the work that the parts are supposed to do, or else it cannot function. The relationships that you have right now are therefore the most important ones, since they're the only ones that have the power to do work in the actual world that we live in. Which is not to say that we ought to never think about the future. We just have to make sure that thinking about the future is a function of where we're at now.

Lesson Number 8: You Were Made to Live, Not Learn

You know, you can always count on me to wrap things up with something totally paradoxical. For me, this lesson is the most important one right now. That is, it's the one most on my mind at the moment.

I've said before that we don't need to be smart of important to contribute to the cosmic processes of creativity. I find that it is more true each day. I used to believe that, so long as I came away from something with some kind of life lesson, then my time was well spent. But if people are hurt, then that's just not the case. It's not loving that ought to conclude in learning, but rather, learning should be a function of primarily loving.

People do not want to learn. What we want is to love. We want to be connected. We want to commit and we want to belong. Looking at the cosmos as a whole and the sheer number of possibilities that there are in this universe, I am under the constant need to remember how small I am. The amount of force that it would take to end my life is, literally, next to nothing. I am fragile and small and silent. Given that, why do we make so much of the differences between ourselves? Sex, race, gender, class, ethnicity, creed, ability level...

We must want some place to put our little tiny corner of life. Those differences must be important somehow because, sure, I'm very small. But, you know, I've still got what I've got and I really want to do something with it. After all, it's all about Gift. Gift given and Gift received.

This is not to say that learning is always about self-validation. It's not. But if you can love without the need to be validated in any capacity, including the need to learn, then, (in my opinion) you're set, friend.