AFTERWORD
Go Be Broken, Go Be Whole

These truly human relations were not a fruit of imagination or abstract thought; they were experienced.

Mikhail Bakhtin

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

When L’Arche International leaders gathered in Vancouver in the spring of 2013, United Church minister Doug Graves presided at the Wednesday night worship and members of L’Arche Greater Vancouver acted out the gospel reading. First the sisters of Lazarus send word to Jesus (wearing his baseball cap), that their brother is ill. Jesus tarries. They worry. By the time Jesus comes, they object to Jesus’s request to open the tomb, because Lazarus has been dead for several days and his body will smell. Jesus convinces them to open the tomb, and invites Lazarus, now no longer dead, to come forth where he will be unbound from the grave wrappings. Except for the baseball cap, all of that is in the Bible.

In the L’Arche skit, Lazarus emerged bound thoroughly with bands of toilet paper, looking like a butterfly ready to burst its cocoon. When Jesus’s cry came – “Unbind him! Let him go free!” – we all watched with eager anticipation. His community members began to unwind the complicated swaddling. The binding got all tangled up. In fact, it was getting tighter. His liberators became a bit flustered. Things were getting worse, not better, for poor Lazarus, and he was becoming quite annoyed! In the end, he burst through some of his final bindings on his own strength. Everyone rejoiced.

Watching that, I learned something that I have not forgotten. It is a “long walk to freedom,” as Nelson Mandela wrote. This is a story of inversion, from death to life, from rotting to vibrant, from a body alone in the tomb to a community celebration. But it does not happen instantly. Unbinding and liberation is a process, and sometimes things get worse before they get better. Even the most well-intentioned community can bind us tighter before liberating us. Some liberation can come from outside, but every “singular”1 person is also an agent in his or her own life.

At the United Church’s 43rd General Council in Oshawa in July 2018, an extraordinary scene erupted that reminds me of the L’Arche Lazarus skit.2 In the next United Church Observer, Trisha Elliott describes it like this: “In the last hours of the business meeting, General Council intercultural observer Douglas Walfall takes the podium to offer reflections using his own intercultural lens. He says he has yet to hear an acknowledgment of racism in the church and that at times he feels invisible[:] ‘Part of the problem may well be that you have not stopped to listen to our story.’” Elliott recounts how Walfall identifies ongoing problems of prejudice and systemic racism in Canada by telling specific stories, then adds:

‘Let us ensure that the people who sit at the table [of the church] are there not as guests but as valued members of the family,’ he concludes. His message takes root, and the room breaks open. A spontaneous motion seeks forgiveness. Then there’s talk of apology. Commissioners line up to share experiences of racism inside and outside the church. The planned meeting agenda is set aside. Stories flow for two hours, streaming testimonies of judgment, exclusion, pain and grace. The dinner hour comes and goes. The final testimony comes from moderator nominee Colin Phillips, who uses a device to give voice to his words. He speaks about how commissioners avoided him throughout the week, fearing his disability: ‘You were afraid. You were not able to get past that fear to even sit [down with me].’3

Like the death of Lazarus, there is a backstory.4 In this case, earlier on the same day Philip Peacock, a minister in the United Church of North India and executive secretary for justice and witness in the World Communion of Reformed Churches, had preached at the morning worship, commending a dynamic of inversion. In his words:

Today I ask you, as a fellow traveller on this long road to freedom, are you ready to be discombobulated as a church? We need to be discombobulated because only then will we learn to see ourselves from outside of ourselves, to be able to learn from ­others and then truly learn our limitations and possibilities. The question is: how can we unlearn our privilege and learn to listen to others? This should not be an accumulation and an assimilation of the knowledge of others into our own systems. This means that we allow the other, and particularly the marginalized / broken other, to derange and destabilize us, to completely and fundamentally change us. That listening to the other really should twist us out of shape in a way that we are no longer the same.5

Then the day’s business begins. Perhaps like Lazarus’s sisters sending word of their brother’s illness to Jesus, several groups in the United Church sent word to the United Church commissioners that the church is not well, their seven proposals grouped under the theme “Intercultural and Dominant Privilege Lenses.” These had been discussed in subgroups on previous days. Unlike Jesus, the church does not tarry at all: on the morning of 27 July, the entire General Council passes all seven proposals so resoundingly that no discussion is required.6 That afternoon, during the Final Decision Session of General Council, just when people are expecting to be released, Intercultural Observer Douglas Walfall reiterates many of the same points as the seven Intercultural and Dominant Privilege Lenses proposals, but the points become embodied in his stories.7 He is graciously thanked, business resumes, motions are debated, but then business is interrupted with an emotional resolution. Youth delegate Daniel MacDonald and United Church minister Penny Nelson move “that the 43rd General Council seek forgiveness from our racialized siblings in Christ and furthermore commit to transforming our business practice and procedures for the remainder of the meeting, and from this point forward.” Is this a call to unbind and free the Church?

United Church moderator Jordan Cantwell points out that the motion intentionally overturns business as usual, saying “We have a proposal on the floor, and I recognize in terms of process, the kind of process that we’re used to following, that this is outside of that process – and I think that is precisely the point. I think that in order for us to be the kind of church that we are called to be, that we long to be, that this proposal is inviting, that our intercultural observers have invited us to be, we need to get used to doing things that are outside of our usual way of doing things.”8 Is this upending of established protocol another invitation to inversion?

United Church minister Ha Na Park takes a microphone to say that as racialized member, she felt troubled that some of the comments about the Intercultural and Dominant Privilege Lenses motion that had passed so readily a few hours earlier were not discussed in the larger gathering, especially since some commissioners admitted that the title of the proposal made them feel defensive. “We lost the opportunity to have the deeper dialogue because of how we moved forward with the ninety percent, then no dialogue, just to go with the motion,” she declares.9 Cantwell asks that everyone take three minutes of silent, prayerful reflection before people step up to the microphones. After the first three speakers, Cantwell asks even more explicitly that White commissioners step away from the microphones and give space for Indigenous, Black, or other racialized commissioners to speak. Nearly two dozen people step up to the microphones and explain, sometimes patiently, often with exasperation and anger, that neither apologies nor forgiveness make sense until stories are heard, and that has not yet happened. Unbinding and freeing the United Church is not so easy. The testimonies of the speakers reveal that relationships in the Church and Canadian society are complicated and tangled. Their stories wrap everyone in painful realities.10

Any liberation begun at the 43rd General Council will be a slow process. “I think that [any formal motion] should be something that is said simply and then is found a way to be lived out,” insists United Church minister Maya Douglas. “Even if you apologize and make the most beautiful and wonderful proposal, it’s going to take the work of the church over many, many years.”11 “It’s a slow process of entering into the spirit of Jesus,” Jean Vanier said to the 25th General Council many years earlier as he urged the commissioners to acknowledge their position of privilege and to take responsibility “quietly, not suddenly throwing all our goods out, but letting grow in us the spirit of Jesus, and thus becoming a bridge between these two cultures of those who have too much and those who have too little. Don’t be frightened.”12

WE ARE NOT ALONE

The 43rd General Council was co-hosted by the All Native Circle Conference and the Bay of Quinte Conference. It opened with an Indigenous Edge of the Woods ceremony led by Elder Grafton Antone. In a similar spirit, two months later, L’Arche Canada’s National Assembly in Halifax opened with a welcome ceremony led by Rosie Sylliboy from the We’Koqma’q First Nation and some of her friends from Mawita’mk. Sylliboy has more than three decades of L’Arche connection, and in 2007 opened Mawita’mk as a place in her Mi’kmaw community where the unique gifts and spiritual identity of each person could be celebrated. Mawita’mk activities include supports in the Mi’kmaq language, a work program, assisted living for people with disabilities, cultural workshops, drumming, and traditional medicine.

The L’Arche Canada National Assembly happens every four or five years, attended by representatives with and without intellectual disabilities from all twenty-nine Canadian communities as well as two newer L’Arche projects, plus leadership and staff from all levels of L’Arche Canada including the L’Arche Canada Board and the L’Arche Canada Foundation. Like the United Church, L’Arche is also addressing new realities and changes. New government employment regulations limiting work hours have pushed L’Arche in Canada to reimagine what L’Arche communities will look like going forward. Other questions that L’Arche faces are also familiar to the United Church: financial constraints, size and structure, new outreach initiatives, leadership, accountability, and how to remain united across a large and diverse country.

United Church member Paul Vogel attended the National Assembly as a member of the L’Arche Canada Board. A lawyer by training, he found it refreshing to be part of a gathering where people expressed strong viewpoints in a setting that wasn’t adversarial. People disagreed, but most felt they had an opportunity to be heard. And after the work, the delegates would get up and sing and dance together.

It is tempting to romanticize long-term community experiments like L’Arche or a church. But as you read in some of the stories in this book, the reality is often frustrating or even devastating. Former moderator Gary Paterson likes to quote the thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi’s invitation to “gamble everything for love.” The poem continues, affirming that seekers set out to find God but instead find themselves stopping for “long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.”13 L’Arche is no different: human communities reach for majesty but tend to have periods of feeling like mean-spirited roadhouses. Inspiring ideals with unrealistic expectations can be exhausting and depressing to live. Good-hearted people can do a great deal of damage to each other. I do not want to falsely glorify either L’Arche or the United Church of Canada. As Jean Vanier recognizes, “let us not get carried away in idealistic illusions of community. Living in community is not easy. The closer we get to one another, the more dramatic small annoyances become, the more agonizing the behaviour of another, and the more our own anguish surfaces. We can become competitive or angry, protective or jealous. Community life can help us discover walls of fear and hatred that we never knew existed.”14 Vanier is speaking of life in intentional, daily community, but his points apply equally to any community. Rumi’s poem implies moving on from “mean-spirited roadhouses,” and there is a life cycle that needs to be respected. Not everyone should stay forever in a community or even a church. But L’Arche also commends fidelity. Moving on simply to escape a mean-spirited community or church can evade our own responsibility for healing, for leadership, for growth.

Like the Church, L’Arche is a shared journey. Some people stay for all their lives. More people stay for a time, are changed through community experiences, and then are sent forth, either voluntarily or involuntarily. In 1999, Vanier wrote a “Letter to My Brothers and Sisters in L’Arche and in Faith and Light,” insisting that to work for unity requires commitment during times of suffering: “I am not ignoring the importance of celebrations in L’Arche and Faith and Light or all the joys of communion between us, and I do not want to be pessimistic. But the experience of these thirty-four years in L’Arche have shown me that in order to be faithful on a long-term basis and to be committed to working for unity, we have to learn how to remain close to suffering, how to hold on in situations of pain.”15

What does it mean to “hold on in situations of pain”? One of the participants in the United Church’s “Theologies of Disabilities Report” shared, “More than anything, I need you not to be afraid of my story. I need people who are willing to walk with me when I am afraid, angry, exhausted, or sad.”16 United Church minister Ian Macdonald found in L’Arche “a healing model that we have not explored in our churches. We are the disabled ones who haven’t been able to talk about the way we really are, the things that we’re lonely about, the things that we fear.”17 At the 43rd General Council, Carmen Lansdowne spoke of her experience of simultaneously being privileged by her education and position in the church and yet also being affected by intergenerational racism and trauma in ways that are not always evident. She is a member of the Heiltsuk First Nation, a United Church minister, and executive director of Vancouver’s First United Church. “Our stories are not visible because you don’t ask for them,” she insisted.18

Looking for a way forward, Lansdowne pointed to alliances with those moving away from dominant privilege:

We have so much work to do. We passed all of the social justice proposals today with no discussion as if of course ‘that’s who we are.’ It is not who we are, because we have people in this room who are hurting and broken because of how we are treating each other … I know there are people in this room who can lead you in looking at issues of economic and White privilege … people who are already doing reconciliation from a perspective of dismantling their own White privilege – those are your leaders. And we will walk with you and we will help you find them because we know who they are because they are safe.19

In 2008, Canadian writer Ian Brown wrote to Jean Vanier about his fears and struggles on a road trip with his son Walker, who lives with multiple disabilities. Vanier replied, “Your questions come, I sense, from your loneliness. As a responsible father, you (like all such fathers) are part of a vast struggle for peace and unity and life. But you do not always realize or remember this. You are too alone. You did not travel down to New York with others who love you and Walker.”20 In this, the United Church and L’Arche share some similar challenges, because even communities such as churches and L’Arche can be “too alone.” But as the “Theologies of Disabilities Report” recommends, alliance-building could help groups and individuals in their work of transformation to hold onto their larger vision, their part in what Vanier terms “a vast struggle for peace and unity and life.” Is part of the ongoing integration of the final session of the 43rd General Council similar, that the challenge is not only individual wrestling with the issues, but how to travel together with others?

LOVE’S CONFUSING JOY

Perhaps the lines of Rumi’s poem that precede “Gamble everything for love” could be grappled to our hearts: “you’ll be forgiven for forgetting / that what you really want is / love’s confusing joy.”21

In the gospels, what happens to Lazarus after he is raised from his death? It seems almost comical that the authorities respond with a plan to kill first Jesus and then the newly alive Lazarus. With death looming on every side, what do the family and friends of Lazarus do? What is the obvious thing to do? They throw a party. Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes back to Bethany and they give a dinner for him. Everyone is there. Lazarus is at the table, and his sister Mary anoints Jesus with perfume that Jesus identifies as perfume she had bought for the day of his burial. Apparently she decided it would be more satisfying to anoint Jesus’s feet while he is still alive. The scent that fills the house could remind everyone of the nearness of death, but instead becomes part of their feast. A big crowd comes to see the party.22 This is the wisdom and paradoxical pleasure of the gospels: when all seems lost and excruciatingly vulnerable, come together with feasting, generosity, and joy.

Faith and Sharing retreats like the ones at Naramata and Cedar Glen in the 1970s continue. They are still affordable, ecumenical retreats with participants of diverse abilities, church affiliations, and income brackets. Members of L’Arche communities often come.23 In 2014, my husband Geoff and I were the “animators” for Vancouver Island’s thirty-ninth annual Faith and Sharing retreat. We spent the week exploring the gospel stories of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. The climax of the retreat was this story of the party after Lazarus is raised from the dead, and everyone at the retreat participated in acting it out. We brought armloads of wild clothing so that everyone could layer up in splendid party outfits. We read the gospel slowly, interspersed with additions such as naming the guests. The scene described in John 12 built, and then it took on a life of its own. A flexible man with Down syndrome and his friend announced that at this party for Lazarus, they would like to demonstrate the yoga pose “downward dog.” This random but earnest upside-down posture was definitely a kind of inversion, opening the festivities to yet more spontaneous contributions. The room erupted into hearty cheers and laughter; streamers in many colours were flung to and fro to represent the scent that filled the room when Mary anointed Jesus’s feet with valuable perfume. Our musicians launched into a rocking version of “Children of the Light,” and we all joined in singing, “we’re shining in the darkness of the night, hope for this world, joy through all the land, touch the hearts of everyone, take everybody’s hand.” We were shining, dancing, singing, and laughing uproariously in our absurd outfits and our outrageous gospel party-skit. It was festive, and it was also mysteriously prayerful and deep.

This memorable scene didn’t occur because Geoff and I are somehow exceptional retreat leaders – it was a spontaneous community carnival with its own momentum. What made the moment so profound is that everyone at the retreat knew suffering. Some people there had been to decades of Faith and Sharing retreats and knew each other well, while others were newcomers. We had been sharing deeply with each other for several days about our points of anguish, the inner voices that tell us we are no good. We were people with a range of impairments, some of us precariously housed. We had shared stories of mental breaks and illness, of dread and grieving and anger, of resilience and friendship and faith in our most hopeless times. We had shared deep times of prayer in our small sharing groups and in the large group, sometimes in words and often in shared silence. Like Lazarus and Jesus and their friends, our raucous celebration hinged on a mature mutual awareness of vulnerability and erupted out of our suffering, not in spite of it.24

Rooted in this deep work of listening, our gospel enactment was tender, the kind of “hinge” moment that L’Arche psychiatrist Patrick Mathias writes about: “Tenderness brings a sense of relaxation or well being, a softening of our defenses. It is like a hinge or a pivot. It tempers the changes, tensions and lack of coherence in our lives and brings together desire and love.”25

The Final Decision Session of the 43rd General Council could likewise be a pivot, the tenderness and vulnerability of the shared experience providing the hinge that allowed what Mathias terms “the tensions and lack of coherence” to surface, expressed as anger, desire, and love. As someone who has experienced racism in the church and society at large, Carmen Lansdowne expressed a sense of alliance with Colin Philips, a candidate for moderator who uses a wheelchair for mobility and voice technology for communication. Lansdowne declared, “You ask us to come here and to participate with you in what already is, and it is your work. It is your work as the dominant church to change – to understand that somebody like Colin could have something prophetic and beautiful to say to the church, and that there’s the possibility his being moderator wouldn’t only just be about ableism and disability.”26

L’Arche and the United Church of Canada contribute diverse lived experiences, not only to each other but also to what Wade Davis calls “our human repertoire for dealing with the complex challenges that will confront us as a species in the coming centuries.”27 As Jean Vanier encouraged the commissioners at the 25th General Council in 1972, “Begin where you are, with tenderness and kindness, with those who are your neighbours. And as the spirit grows, it calls you forth, further and further. Let it grow so that we become people of love and compassion, tenderly, quietly, wherever we are, opening ourselves up, listening to people.”28

More than two-and-a-half hours into the final session of the 43rd General Council, commissioner Carno Tchuani Jiembou stepped up to a microphone. Speaking in French with a translator, he began, “I believe not everything is bad, but together we can construct something that is good.” Five years earlier he had come to Canada to do his PhD, but his experience of racial discrimination was so severe that he decided to leave. He stayed, however, because when people at his church heard his story, someone reached out to him by phone. “Even though she has now died, I am still in that spirit and I know there are many others here among us who have that spirit of being authentic and true. So we need to get to know each other. We need to listen to each other. And if you listen you will get to know us and you will hear the suffering that we carry every day,” he continued. “This is my first General Council and when I came here on the first day I heard the story of the Indigenous peoples and I was very touched and asked to be able to meet with them. Over two hours we shared with each other among three people, and I understood their suffering and now from today on, I have to walk with them. As our Creed says, we are not alone. Together we can move forward.”29

This is what I want to say to conclude this book: somehow we have to convince our hearts and our imaginations that communities with more tenderness, truth, diversity, and freedom are not only commendable, but are that for which we most deeply hunger.

I asked United Church minister and songwriter Ian Macdonald whether any of his songs were inspired by L’Arche. He talked about blessing, explaining that “The blessing song I wrote at a time when I was thinking … you get comfortable and then you have to go through the whole process again – who is calling us to be something different? So the line of my song that I would share is ‘Go be broken, go be whole,’ because we are not whole unless we are broken.”