Wrestling with Shifting Faith in a Restless World
Dear Jean, I rather like the reality that you were born on September 10 in 1928 and I was born on September 08 in 1978. Not quite a perfect fifty year span, but two days shy is close enough for me to qualify it as a perfection. I haven’t reached forty yet, so I can’t…
Dear Jean, It’s been an age since I’ve written to you. I’ve been remiss. I listen to your talks and read your books, and I would love one day to meet you. I’m sure enough pilgrims wander towards L’Arche already, however, that you likely don’t need this reluctant mystic tugging at your sleeve. Still, I…
I don’t “birthday” well. Erin Thomas: b. September 08, 1978 Jean Vanier: b. September 10, 1928 We are nearly a perfectly golden fifty years apart. You have spent the majority of your life celebrating people who have been left uncelebrated and unloved. Today, we celebrate you as a wise, humble man who submitted himself to…
Dear Jean, I’m sitting here in front of my computer on a cool drizzly day supposedly writing my final arts therapy paper. If I’m honest, I have managed to format my paper, type a working title, eek out an introduction, and… …stop everything else and write to you. Clearly I need a break from an…
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. -1 John 4:18 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they…
“Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.” -Jean Vanier, Becoming Human Dear Jean, You or I could throw a stone…
“The poor are always prophetic. As true prophets always point out, they reveal God’s design. That is why we should take time to listen to them. And that means staying near them, because they speak quietly and infrequently; they are afraid to speak out, they lack confidence in themselves because they have been broken…
