A Place of Refuge

Accompanier’s Manual – L’Arche Tahoma Hope Community
(Teilhard de Chardin from The Making of a Mind)

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay…We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new; and yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability… and that it may take a very long time.

And so it is with you, your ideas mature gradually…let them grow, let them shape themselves without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what tie (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that God’s hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

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This excerpt was read at one of our orientation sessions. I fought back the tears, because I am not yet ready to be that vulnerable with this community. “I am a strong independent woman” as on of the seasoned assistants says to make fun of the “her” she was when she was me. (If that makes sense…J )

I can tell this journey with L’Arche is going to be much more than I originally assumed. I knew it would be a wonderful experience, but I did not expect it to be so much of a spiritual pilgrimage. But it is such a slow pilgrimage. It is a slow process to become part of this community, part of this story. I want yearn for the work to be over and to confidently know I also have a place in this community to love and be loved. But for now, as this poem pushes, I must “accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

Again at orientation there were many things that stuck out to me. One, was the meaning of words:
- L’Arche = Ark, Refuge… this is a place where people are save amidst the storms
- Ananda (one of the houses) = the joy with which we cannot live without.
- Anawim (another house) = the humble and lowly who will lead us home (or something like that.)

Some other quick thoughts:
- In the spirituality of L’Arche, God is the weakest and most vulnerable. The crosses born here are in wheel chairs, limited ways to communicate and so on.
- Community can make terrible demands too. (This statement scared me… because of my longing for the familiarity of my family and friends … can I give that security up for the risk of this community? Yes, I have only a 1 year commitment… but my fear is the urge that is already inside of me for more.)
- As we develop cognitively we grow further from God… as we age we grow closer again… most people with Developmental Disabilities never separate from God.
- When people frustrate us, it is best to think about what that person is touching in us, rather than complain about them. Praying for our enemies is about changing yourself, not your enemy.