L’Arche means “the ark,” and I’ve discovered, in my time here, many of the ways that L’Arche is like a fantastic trip on a boat. In a recent homily I presented at one of our regular community chapel services, I asked everyone to think about a journey on a boat. Many of the responses were (excuse the nautical pun) “deeper” than they were at first glance. This seems to be a common theme at L’Arche.
Most of the thoughts shared had to do with the people on the boat with us. Not everyone was happy about being cooped up on a boat in such close quarters for such a long journey. “We’ll have fun—if we don’t all kill each other first!,” one core member told me. My journey, and, I think, the journey of most people who spend time at L’Arche reflects this truth. Those we make relationships with on this “boat” do not always rub us the right way—and my time here at L’Arche was not been perfect. I arrived a basket of nerves, given responsibilities like helping people care for themselves, giving medications, cooking, cleaning, and paying close attention to the needs of core members. I thought that surely I would mess up—what if I forget something? What if I burn the pasta or give the medication a little early, or get frustrated too quickly?
As the summer continued along, I realized that these questions didn’t make much sense. Yes, of course I would mess up somewhere along the way—and I certainly did. The food wasn’t always perfect, I was not always on time, and I didn’t feel like getting out of bed every morning. Interactions with core members were at times frustrating.
When I mentioned to people that I’d be in a L’Arche community for the summer, they often assumed I was going with a “servant” mentality. I would go and find Christ in the core members there, and return with some great insight about the church. I suppose that’s not a bad attitude to have, but this is certainly not what has happened. While a servant mentality is important it is often perverted into an “I am serving you” kind of thinking that separated the servant from those being served. Instead, I found a blurry definition of “servant” and “served” in this community—precisely because the community life here is so rich. Instead of doing things “for them” (which is often how outsiders speak about core members), we do things together. In our community life the core members have particular limitations that all do not share, but what I have discovered is that we all share in the limitedness of being human. In the limitations of others, I have discovered my own limitations—impatience, laziness at times, a temperamental nature—and how my own limitations aren’t so different from the limitations of core members.
As we share in the limitedness of being human something spectacular happens: the unlimited emerges—we begin to see God together, in each other.
In that same chapel service, I also asked what the best part of a maritime journey might be. The answer came: the best part is that we’re on the boat together. Things would get boring quickly if there were only one of two of us on the journey. This points to something exciting about L’Arche—people are celebrated, in all of our humanness—and especially in the defining characteristic of humanity: limitedness. We are all together in community; living together, eating together, working together, and we have gotten to know each other fairly well. Here, among limits, what we do is make the God-given gifts of people known. This is a place where I have learned how to celebrate the gifts of people; in small ways—throwing a birthday party for Carl, framing a piece of Bill’s artwork, going for a night out at a pub to hear Johnny play the spoons, returning a friendly hello up to Robin’s bedroom window, or putting a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder. It is a joy to participate in the celebration: the gifts I have received cannot be numbered.
This celebrating comes from knowing somewhere deep down that each person is a creation of God. In this, I have seen the seeds of transformation. God reveals Godself to us in our neighbor, in our fellow community member—in our own limitedness and in the limitedness of others; and God is present in the Gifts too, gifts to be celebrated, gifts that let us know that we don’t need to be everything for everyone, we don’t need to be perfect; but the humanity God gives us is enough. In the community—the boat—where we celebrate each other’s gifts and understand our own limited nature, the kind of reconciliation God desires is happening. Instead of lines that separate, we look to our common life together. Where there are differences, we look for the God-given gifts and celebrate them. Like a journey on a boat, we are in close quarters—which is a gift and a challenge.
And our destination? As the journey continues, by God’s grace, we are transformed bit by bit towards holiness together.
May God bless our journey.
