Encounter, by Wassily Kandinsky
L’Arche Communities are people with and without learning disabilities, designing and creating spaces for encounter, mutual friendship and transformation that become signs for our world that we all belong, and that we all have gifts for building a more peaceful and just world.
In 2019, we began a process to create a new Charter for the Federation of L’Arche Communities. This 3-year process involves all 150 Communities in 40 countries around the world - about 10,000 members – in an inclusive reflection and discernment on our shared life together. The goal is to create a new Charter that includes and builds on our Identity & Mission statements, and articulates our unity in our diversity; and the very process itself actually builds that unity.
It has been a tumultuous year! Our founder Jean Vanier died in 2019, and then the results of an independent inquiry published in February 2020 shattered our image of him. The Charter process suddenly became even more critical. Our instinct in these times is to come together, to be together, to speak with each other, to listen to each other.
And then we went into lockdown. Suddenly, our ability to gather together was curtailed as the COVID-19 pandemic caused restrictions on gatherings and travel. All focus was diverted into the immediate need to keep many vulnerable people safe from the COVID-19 virus.
Amidst all the disruption, creative gatherings started popping up online. As a dispersed global community, we had been using as a means to hold certain meetings zoom for a number of years. But now there was an explosion of spaces being created online. Community gatherings over cups of tea went online – “Communitea” in London, “Brewteaful” in Manchester! Listening circles were created online.
We had been concerned that the Charter process would be derailed by the inquiry findings; and even more so by the restrictions on meeting together. But in fact communities continued to find creative ways to contribute their reflections to the process. There have been over 1,600 contributions posted to our website. In fact, when life is turned upside down, as it has been by the inquiry findings and COVID-19, what is really important in our shared life rises to the surface. When the ground is pulled from under your feet, what is the ground on which you stand? You discover a deeper grounding.
Just this week, a group of members with and without learning disabilities met in council with our international leaders. We should have been meeting in Paris but instead met on zoom for 3 hours each day – very early for some and very late for others due to different time zones around the world. We listened to each other’s stories about the impact of the inquiry and COVID-19. We acknowledged our grief and sense of brokenness through ritual: the words of the Book of Lamentations, the tearing of our story, the breaking of branches to hear and feel, the shock of a shattering pot. The loss and grief is brought into the body. Separated by countries and continents, we were together in shared symbol.
Walter Brueggemann’s metaphor of exile resonates with us. It is like we have been taken away from home and into exile. Exiled from our usual reference points and ways of being together. Yet with creativity, new symbols and rituals bring us together again. As one of the Charter contributions from Argentina said, ‘the truth breaks us into a thousand pieces; with these pieces we can re-build community’.
At the beginning of October each year, we celebrate the global family of L’Arche. This year, we held an online Festival. At sundown on the first day, we lit candles and posted photographs on social media; every hour, images from around the world connected us to each other in a simple ritual. Then at the end of the week, we had a series of online sessions which people could join. Different communities shared their gifts with the whole family: roundtable discussions, dance, art, music. Over 350 screens were present on zoom for the concluding plenary session when we danced and sang and prayed together: new ways to create the spaces where all belong, and all can offer their gift for our world.
John Sargent has been a member for L’Arche for over 30 years, initially in Liverpool and now in Preston