12th
Unlikely allies? At first sight Jean Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas seem unlikely allies. Hauerwas (named America’s best theologian by Time magazine in 2001) is a battle-hardened academic whose natural inclination is to defend people with intellectual disabilities by using his well-honed intellectual skills. As he says, he sees himself as “a warrior on behalf of L’Arche, doing battle against the politics that threaten to destroy these gentle communities.” At one level he stands in stark contrast to the gentleness of Jean Vanier and L’Arche. He states, “Where I see an enemy to be defeated, he [Vanier] sees a wound that needs to be healed. That’s a deep difference.”
And yet Vanier is no less of a warrior. He has fought many a hard battle as L’Arche has taken shape. He is gentle, but he also has the capacity for violence because, like all of us, he carries the deep wound of his own loneliness. But unlike many of us, he has learned to see his enemies as wounded people who are loved by God. Though it did not come easily or naturally, he learned gentleness as he allowed his experiences with people with profound disabilities to shape his presumptions and behaviors.
