At my first prayer service at L’Arche, a long-term assistant welcomed me and said, “Be careful. L’Arche gets in your blood, and you’re never the same.”
26 years later, I still affirm that she was right. L’Arche is so much a part of me that it’s like it’s “in my blood.” I lived in community for 9 years (1996-2005) and am now a pastor in Raleigh; L’Arche is with me, IN me all the time. L’Arche has given me a great capacity to celebrate others. I may have been generally affirming before L’Arche, but now I really delight in each person. Recently, a new colleague commented on how much she delighted in hearing me greet people in the hallway as they come back into the church office. That’s the welcome of L’Arche. L’Arche taught me to not shy away from hard things; which is important as a pastor because my people go through really hard things. It’s L’Arche that taught me…in-depth…that God is present in our pain and vulnerabilities.
L’Arche has been called a “moveable feast,” an embodiment of abundance that can be experienced in many times and places. I miss it every day, sitting at an actual L’Arche table, but L’Arche taught me how to gather my own family at the table, with candles, and sharing, songs, and prayer. L’Arche gave me the wisdom and flexibility to integrate the ideas of Jewish Shabbat into my own family’s Friday night tradition of “Sabbath Circle,” where each person leads some exercise where we connect as a family.
Because of L’Arche, I celebrate communion everywhere I go with church members. Once, I celebrated with a small circle of church members, standing outside of a house where we were staying on a mission trip, using a coffee cup and salad plate. One member told me later, that at first, she thought “that’s practically barbaric” (she was laughing as she said it), but it helped her receive Jesus in a whole new way. A favorite memory was on a women’s beach retreat when the best cup to use for communion was a margarita glass; it’s so wide! That was a first for all of us.
L’Arche taught me…in-depth…how the holy resides and can be revealed in the ordinary. When I left the community, someone said, “more L’Arche in the world, more love in the world.” May it be so in me and in every person whose life is touched by this moveable feast of abundance.
Rev. Dye with her friend, John Smeltzer, who was part of the L’Arche group that came down all the way from Canada to attend her wedding in 2011!
