I heard Jean Vanier speak several times over the years. If you don't know who Jean Vanier is then please read this obituary before reading the rest of this post.
The first time I heard Jean Vanier was in Queen's Cross Church 20 years ago. By then he was around 70, and already walked with his massive frame slightly stooped. He could have played the Big Friendly Giant with a minimum of makeup and coaching. Jean's gentleness was unmistakable, he wore his heart, not so much on his sleeve, more like a high visibility vest. His movements were slow, his face most reposed when smiling which seemed to be his default setting. He looked around at the audience with eyes that saw, and paid attention, and cared about what was going on behind the faces of those in front of him. He saw more than faces. This was a man who looked and loved, who smiled as an intimation of intentional friendship.
He draped himself languidly over the tall lectern, his long arms and hands moving expressively, occasionally gesturing outwards as if trying to embrace the whole crowd. He spoke of vulnerability and love, of community and forgiveness, about radical gentleness and human woundedness; and he spoke of these things as one who was a lifelong practitioner. His words were compelling, his eyes glinting with hope and conviction, his face not so much animated as responsive to the truth he was telling and the people who were listening. And were we listening.
This man had abandoned a promising career in the Navy, had become a professor of philosophy and abandoned that path too, and started a small community to share his life with people then described as having intellectual disabilities. Out of that small cottage in Troisly in France, grew what is now a world-wide network of caring and community called L'Arche. It was out of 40 and more years of such community building that Jean spoke that evening. Not a hint of self-promotion, simply a woven pattern of stories about people enabled to be who they are, about acceptance and belonging, about the love of Jesus becoming embodied in communities of welcome, and about how human growth is rooted in love, forgiveness, service and the gift of ourselves to each other.
In one sense I wasn't hearing anything new; I had read and deeply pondered his best writing for 25 years by then. But to hear him tell it with the quiet authority of one who had walked it, and had helped thousands find their place and their way; to witness a man gently aflame with love and conviction which he framed in stories of suffering and joy, of vulnerability and healing, of brokenness and wholeness; to recognise that in all he was describing he was demonstrating the counter-cultural value system of Jesus, and promoting a way of life that contradicts the most cherished values of a consumer culture; that gave these truths an intensity that was unforgettable - and unignorable.
For the previous 10 years I had been chaplain in a school for children with significant extra support needs. During those years I tried to model some of what I had learned from the life and thought of Jean Vanier, and from the stories of L'Arche as communities where 'each one is special, accepted and loved...' And that night, all those years of class involvement, school assemblies, pastoral engagement with staff, pupils and parents, were validated as exactly what ministry is, and what the vocation of love and grace both demands and confers.
I heard Jean Vanier a couple of times more, but that first evening remains one of those experiences to which I return in thought and prayer, and like the widow's cruse of oil, it never fails. It never fails to nourish my hope, and to encourage me in the vocation of loving whosoever in Jesus' name. Nor does it fail to remind me that at best, we can only ever be wounded healers, unprofitable servants who have received more than we could ever give.
And this is the thing. Jean Vanier didn't only envision and bring to fruition an international network of L'Arche communities. He also modelled for so many a way of being, and of being together in community, that demonstrated the love of Jesus for the lost and the unwanted, the weak and the afraid, the struggling and the broken. And in that modelling he inspired the kinds of human interchange where sadness is able give way to joy in the sharing of life, where commitment of people to each other in love and responsible reciprocal caring enables everyone to grow, and change, and find their place. Vanier held it as a fundamental observation that all human beings have disabilities, we all struggle, everyone has weaknesses, each one of us suffers and needs friends, love and safety. In that sense in Vanier's worldview, we all have invisible disabilities, and therefore all are in need of compassion, understanding and the freedom to acknowledge our need,
There is deep sadness that Jean Vanier has died. But what a life he has lived! And what light he shone into many, many lives. As a man of profound faith and open armed compassion, he has inspired one of the richest models of what can happen when Christian love, human disability and hopeful vision coalesce into community. May he rest in peace, rise in glory, and be met in heaven with the volumes of laughter and celebration he inspired in the lives he touched to their blessing.
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