Boy with the purple hat #1, originally uploaded by Matt & Polly.
I’ve recently been re-reading From Brokenness to Community by Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arch. It is a great little book based on lectures he gave at Harvard, and is one of the best books I’ve read on the area of community. So I was particularly pleased to hear this weeks Something Understood that looks at Hospitality with a rare interview with Jean Vanier.
You can listen to the programme on the BBC iPlayer for a short time.
The conversation covers a number of things that have been on my mind recently, and which come up in the book. For instance our tendency to always ‘do, do and do’, often as a way to get more power and control, rather than to genuinely help others. In relation to this I was again struck by the notion that it is easier to be the person who is offering the hospitality, than the person receiving hospitality, because of the power gained from offering hospitality.
The importance of listening and of celebrating life together – as well as living day to day in the here and now, are themes that also come up in the programme, and the book… not bad for a 30 minute radio programme and a 50 page book!
“We all know well that we can do things for others and in the process crush them, making them feel that they are incapable of doing things by themselves. To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.”
Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community
“Our world will only be a place of peace if we listen and understand and are in relation to those that are different.”
Jean Vanier on Something Understood
