Like many other people I have no trouble speaking, and a great deal of trouble listening. Few human characteristics serve the ego more faithfully than our ability to speak, to talk, to occupy the space between others and us with out noise, our agendas, our thoughts, and if we are honest, often with our emotional needs. One of the writers who helps me to perceive my need of words, talk, speech, that all too seductive facility with words as conduits of thought, and as vocal chess pieces outflanking the other, is Jean Vanier.
I have no hesitation in counting Vanier one of the most remarkable Christian leaders of the past half century. His book Community and Growth is a textbook on courtesy, compassion and presence to the other beyond myself. Courtesy is much more than good manners though it is that - it is respect for the other, communicated by service, deference and a readiness to listen. Compassion is more than emotional feelings of kindness - it is a spirit of welcome, love and acceptance of the other in their need, not as the need meeter, but as one who feels with them, accompanies them and values them for who they are. Presence is precisely what is not given if all we offer are words. Presence is most deeply felt either in silence shared, or in attentiveness to what the other says and who the other is, for it is that attentiveness, such paying of loving attention, that conveys the value and the significance of this other person, in whose presence I am.
Jean Vanier is someone whose presence is unignorable - tall, distinguished, stooped, a face now wrinkled and set in a combination of smiling and thoughtfulness (at least as photographed on the front of the book above. Yet this powerful man, charismatic and accomplished, moves amongst many of the most vulnerable people in our world, and does so with unselfconscious humility, meekness of spirit and a contagious wonder at the miracle and beauty of each human being. In this book of letters he often talks about his own spiritual hopes and disappointments, deeply self-aware and therefore neither exaggerating his guilt nor understating his achievements. His spirit and the spirit he seeks to teach and embody is glimpsed in a couple of sentences as he tells of his inner thoughts while being interviewed for Moscow TV in 1989, at the height of perestroika and glasnost:
"I spoke mainly of the need for love in each human being, especially in the poorest. I spoke of love which is stronger than hatred, and trust which is stronger than fear. Throughout the interview I tried to remain in the presence of God, in order to speak from the depths of my heart, from that place where Jesus lives within me, and thus to speak words from God."
It takes a saint to speak with such innocence of his nearness to God, and for me, Jean Vanier is simply that. An entire pastoral theology of speech and silence could be woven from such comments in this book of letters. A lot of them are more interesting for those interested in the history of L'Arche and the developments of communities for vulnerable people across the world. But in most of them there is wisdom, spiritual reflection, and a humane devotion to others that is so counter-cultural in recession ridden culture, that the values and convictions Vanier espouses and embodies become a powerful witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ.
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