WRITEON FOR MAY 22
sister alies
Last week I told you about a very famous but humble man, Jean Vanier who died May 7 (oops, I'd put the 8th!)...anyway I watched his funeral on U-Tube... all the way over there in France. Amazing how various platforms hep us connect! One or two things stood out for me...the simplicity...no $10,000 caskets...just a simple box coffin made by the workshop where he lived and secondly the number of handicapped persons attending and participating in the liturgy. Sitting atop the casket were small red or gold glass holders with tea-light size candles burning like the heart of the man all through.
The other thing that stood out was the multiple languages...we seem so strapped...English only or maybe a bit of Spanish. In Europe kids grow up speaking two or even three languages...including sign language in some places. The music was simple and all seemed to participate...even the most profoundly handicapped lent their voices.
Who do we include and who do we exclude? This has to be an on-going question for us all especially in this political and social climate. Many of us are rightly wrapped up in our own 'problems'...but how do we step outside that and try to bridge the gaps where those without voices (kids on the border?) or home bound elderly, or folks with various sorts of handicaps get a visit or a phone call or indeed become our friends?
Friendship and the desire to reveal the beauty in the other invites us into a whole new world. Think, for example, how many times we talk about walking, wiggling our feet, feeling the grass tickling us, running down the beach...forgetting that that language is not descriptive or helpful to someone in a wheelchair. What is their experience? Our cultural advertisements, all slick and lean, healthy and hopeful, are not the experience of so many. They tend to exclude most of us!Do we still desire them?
What then is the case for inclusion? I think one reality is that I don't have to 'fix' another person. I don't have to make them more like me! I don't have to regard them as better or worse...I just need a) to be myself and b) allow them to be themselves. And then we can grow together. We might be afraid. We might be shy. We might be wondering if another person really 'likes' us...just as we are, because we are not convinced about ourselves. It is only in the actual that we grow...not in the things we make up in our heads! And usually these are very little things that we can do to grow in joy...but, hey, let's do them!
BLESSINGS.
